Marco Rubio has offered nonsensical rationale in attacking the court. The Trump administration’s real goal is impunity

With the pointless war of choice in Iran going poorly, the Trump administration has declared a virtual war on the international criminal court (ICC). Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, vowed on Monday to “dismantle” the court as a supposed threat to US sovereignty. His rationale is laced with sophistry. The administration’s real goal is to secure impunity for war crimes, even those committed on the territory of ICC member states.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video posted on X, Rubio conjures up a dystopia in which local American officials such as police officers or border patrol agents “could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America”.

Mourn him if you wish, but let’s be honest about what he promoted. The longer this thinking lives on, the more peril we will all face

The sudden death over the weekend of the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham is predictably inspiring a slew of tributes to the four-term Republican senator. Donald Trump has already ordered flags be flown at half-staff until Saturday, and Republican politicians across the country are fondly recalling Graham. But so too are the Democrats. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois honored Graham, calling him “a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next”. Senator Adam Schiff of California lauded Graham’s “sense of humor and how he deployed it to move his policy positions forward”.

Through this thick, bipartisan forest of remembrances, however, lies Graham’s concrete legacy. Death has a way of extinguishing uncomfortable truths, but it’s important that we don’t forget who Graham was, what he exactly stood for, and what damage he has done over his political career.

Incidents involving California state senator Scott Wiener and New York congressman Dan Goldman underscore Israel-Palestine conflict’s role in US elections

Two recent incidents involving US congressional candidates on opposite coasts have blown up into major controversies, underscoring how the Israel-Palestine conflict has transformed US elections – and illustrating how aggressive protest tactics can spark backlash that overshadows the issues activists meant to highlight.

Scott Wiener, a gay Jewish state senator and trans rights advocate who is currently the frontrunner in the race to replace the longtime representative Nancy Pelosi in California’s 11th district, said he felt forced to leave last week’s annual trans pride march in San Francisco after a group of people ran up to him at a local park where the event was taking place, surrounded him and screamed at him over his positions on Israel’s war on Gaza.

Mt Olive Pickle Company says it was unaware image of flag was included in exhibit, and cites value of ‘human dignity’

A leading vendor of the US delicacy that is the pickle has withdrawn from the Great American State Fair in Washington DC after North Carolina’s booth displayed a video containing a Confederate flag.

The Mt Olive Pickle Company, which is located in eastern North Carolina and bills itself as the “#1 bestselling brand of pickles, peppers and relishes in the US”, told local news station WNCT it had been unaware that an image of the flag would be included in a video as part of the state’s exhibit.