Decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots without meeting new requirements the USPS tried to impose through executive order from Donald Trump

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Donald Trump has claimed there is a “SICK conspiracy” against artificial intelligence and data centers in response to the growing calls for greater checks on AI development.

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, insisting that the administration has stopped leaders of AI companies from “doing bad, or potentially bad” things. However, he didn’t point to any concrete examples for how he has curbed possible abuse or malfeasance in the industry.

There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China … We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!

Justices’ 5-4 ruling permits Trump administration appeal to block lower court order halting above-ground work

A divided US supreme court has permitted Donald Trump to continue building his controversial $400m White House ballroom despite legal challenges, raising the likelihood it will be completed.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices permitted the Trump administration’s request to ⁠block a lower court order that had halted above-ground construction of the project while a lawsuit by a historic preservation group seeks to block it.

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On Truth Social, however, the president shot down assertions that the US talks with Canada collapsed in part due a proposed trade deal that would have weakened French language protections.

“I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French!” he wrote. “In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing. This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec.”

Justices’ ruling comes after lower courts had blocked president’s election order ahead of November midterms

The US supreme court sided with Donald Trump on Monday in his effort to crack down on mail-in voting, though it remains unclear if his administration can take action ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Justices on the court voted 6-3 along ideological lines to lift an injunction from June that a judge in Massachusetts placed on an executive order issued by the president. But a second injunction remains in place and the ruling leaves room for legal challenges.

Der US-Präsident darf seine Pläne zur Einschränkung der Briefwahl weiterverfolgen. Das hat der Oberste Gerichtshof entschieden. Ob die Pläne rechtmäßig sind, steht noch nicht fest.

Orders come after supreme court rejected president’s first bid to restrict guarantee enshrined in US constitution

Donald Trump has made a second attempt to restrict the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, just weeks after the US supreme court rejected his initial, more sweeping bid to deny automatic citizenship to the children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents.

Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders that seek to broaden the categories of children ineligible for automatic US citizenship and ban so-called “birth tourism”. The directives are expected to face legal challenges.

UK’s highest court gives permission for Huda Ammori to challenge court of appeal ruling

The co-founder of Palestine Action has won permission to challenge the ban against the group at the UK’s highest court.

The direct action group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July last year but its co-founder, Huda Ammori, has been fighting to have the ban overturned amid a mass civil disobedience campaign.

Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett appear before House lawmakers in rare testimony to ask for more protection

Supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett told House lawmakers that a sharp rise in threats against her and other justices is increasingly affecting her personal and family lives.

Barrett and fellow supreme court justice Elena Kagan made the case for increased security in rare House testimony to discuss the court’s budget request. The last time a sitting justice answered questions on Capitol Hill was 2019.

Trump says FBI is ‘wasting their time’ if agency is looking at conspiracies surrounding the Republican senator’s sudden death

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Konstantin Sokolov, a Russian-born private equity investor in Chicago, will serve as chairman of a new state department enterprise fund overseeing more than $200m designated for a central Asia trade corridor, including investments in transportation, energy infrastructure and critical minerals, the Guardian has learned.

The state department confirmed his appointment on Friday.

The president has made dangerous inroads in his push toward autocracy. Yet the prospects for his success are dimming

How do we commemorate America’s democracy as Donald Trump undermines it? By embracing his opposition. The United States was founded by breaking from a monarchy. Trump wants to become king. An imperfect yet powerful system of checks and balances is being deployed to prevent him. The resistance is worth celebrating.

This is hardly the first challenge to US democracy. The early nation had no rights for Black people and no vote for women. It survived Jim Crow, the McCarthy era, and the “war on terror”. Yet there is no denying the seriousness of the threat posed by Trump.

America’s founding 250 years ago was a warning cry against leaders like Trump. Our past is a guide for how to handle our present

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, marking the official birth of the new nation, it is worth remembering some of the reasons the document offers as just cause for making war on the British monarchy.

“No taxation without representation” is the slogan that is best known as the core complaint of the colonists, a reference to the colonists’ objections to the 1765 Stamp Act and a series of taxes levied by the British crown thereafter over which Americans had no means of objecting in parliament. But such taxes were not the only provocation to war.

Supreme court rulings, and revelations of the president’s enrichment since his return to office, show that he has turned back the clock

Donald Trump is not known for his reverence for the US constitution. But in his second term, he is doubling down on his claim from the first: that the text grants him “the right to do whatever I want as president”.

This is, to put it mildly, an extremely unusual interpretation of article 2. But it is the thread that draws together the headlines dominating recent days: a spate of supreme court rulings, mostly to his benefit, and the revelation that he has raked in $2bn since returning to office, half of it from cryptocurrencies.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Gen Z conservative women may be fewer in numbers than their male counterparts, but they are no less consequential

On the steps of the US supreme court on Tuesday, a group of women celebrated. They cheered and held up signs with phrases like “Girls’ Sports for Girls Only” and “Truth, Fairness, Biological Reality”. Penny Young Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women for America, told the gathering that after a decade of these conservative women’s activism: “The court agrees with us that a man cannot be a woman.”

“The decision will affect the law across the country,” she said. “We will have a better opportunity to protect young women.”

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While fielding questions from reporters ahead of his flight to North Dakota today, Donald Trump batted down questions about the $1.2bn he earned from crypto businesses, according to his latest annual financial disclosure.

“We have funds that run my money well. I’ve made a lot of money before I became president,” Trump said. “They’re big institutions, and they run it … I think it’s called a ‘blind account’, but they basically they take it, and I purposely I never speak to any of the people that run the money.”

Court rules against Trump administration on policy that people born in the United States are citizens

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The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

The president had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term that sought to deny automatic citizenship to the children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said this order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution.

President reacts to ruling to uphold birthright citizenship after justices strike down executive order aimed at ending longstanding principle

• Supreme court upholds birthright citizenship, allows states to ban trans women from female sports and ends limits on federal campaign spending

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The supreme court’s decision to reject Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook yesterday is part of a long-running battle over the independence of the central bank.

Trump repeatedly attacked former chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates fast enough, calling him a “moron” on social media. Powell’s term ended in May this year, and he was succeeded by Trump nominee Kevin Warsh.

Legal and labor experts say Trump v Slaughter decision upends settled constitutional law in favor of ‘loyalty test’

As a reality TV show host, Donald Trump rose to fame with the catchphrase: “You’re fired!”. On Monday, the US supreme court handed him – and all future presidents – the power to fire leaders of independent agencies or commissions, overturning 90 years of court precedent curbing executive power.

While Trump celebrated the decision on Truth Social as a “big win”, labor advocates, unions, and consumer advocacy groups criticized the supreme court decision on the case, Trump v Slaughter, and warned of the long-term impacts for democracy in the US. Rebecca Slaughter, the Federal Trade Commissioner fired last March, said she was “profoundly disappointed about today’s decision” during a press call.

Court rules Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies

Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional privacy protections

Court rules Trump’s firing of Lisa Cook from Fed was unconstitutional

Court upholds law to count mail-in ballots arriving after election day

Court rejects Trump’s bid to appeal $5m E Jean Carroll

In blistering dissent, Sonia Sotomayor writes ‘the court gives the president a power unknown even to the English crown’

• Key cases today: Trump can fire federal regulators; Lisa Cook firing unconstitutional; bid to appeal $5m E Jean Carroll verdict; mail-in ballots arriving after election day

The supreme court is due to release some of its final opinions at 10am ET, with major decisions including on Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship and to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook still to come.

Last week the court handed the Trump administration huge wins in major rulings on immigration. It gave the administration a green light to block asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a decision that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system. And it also ruled in favor of the administration’s bid to strip temporary protected status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, who were legally in the US and protected from deportation. The decisions, powered by court’s conservative justices, saw the supreme court accused of advancing a white supremacist agenda.

Markwayne Mullin’s remarks come after controversial supreme court ruling to strip TPS from over 350,000 people

Migrants in the US on temporary protected status should seek permanent residence or leave, Markwayne Mullin, Homeland Security secretary, said in the wake of last week’s supreme court decision that stripped humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

The remarks to CNN’s State of the Union program comes after a decision ⁠that could allow Donald Trump’s administration to deport Haitian and Syrian immigrants to home countries plagued by conflict and ​destitution.

Pentagon says strikes were in response to Iran’s attack on cargo ship in strait of Hormuz

• US says it struck Iran targets after attack on cargo ship on the strait of Hormuz

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Hayes went on:

As national security adviser to the president of the United States, Mr Bolton had access to and was responsible for safeguarding the most sensitive national defense information, including classified material.

Mr Bolton knew how to handle classified information, where it should be stored, how it should be stored, and with whom he could share that information.