The senator’s health is shrouded in mystery after he was hospitalized. Why can’t we get a clear answer?

Is Mitch McConnell dead?

This shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer. The response is either “yes”, “no” or something along the lines of “he’s on life support but appears to be brain dead”.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Senator’s office has released only sparse details about hospital stay, leaving fevered speculation to fill vacuum

Mystery surrounding Senator Mitch McConnell’s health is deepening as the US Congress prepares to return from recess next week.

McConnell, 84, has not been seen in public since he was admitted to hospital in the Washington area on 14 June. Nearly a month later, the Kentucky Republican’s office has released only sparse updates, saying he is “continuing to improve” and remains engaged with Senate business, while refusing to disclose the nature of his illness or explain why he remains hospitalised.

Venture between two Pennsylvania senators stokes speculation about Fetterman’s future in Democratic party

The Democratic senator John Fetterman, who has faced mounting political challenges, is joining forces with the Republican senator Dave McCormick to launch a new joint fundraising committee, a move that is likely to fuel additional questions about Fetterman’s increasingly rightward lurch.

Pennsylvania’s two US senators have established a shared fundraising committee that will collect donations benefiting both of their campaigns in an unusual bipartisan arrangement.

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Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn has pleaded not guilty to vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

Hearn, 67, from Maryland, was arrested last month after stopping by the pool on a bike ride. He told several outlets that he was detained for almost five hours after he reached into the water to inspect what he described a piece of the blue liner that was partially detached from the bottom of the pool as he was curious what it felt like.

John Thune says he spoke to McConnell on phone as secrecy over 84-year-old’s health prompts Maga backlash

Republican leaders have moved to quash speculation about Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader in the US Senate, amid a growing revolt over the lack of transparency around his health.

The 84-year-old Kentucky politician, who led Senate Republicans for longer than anyone in history before stepping down last year, was admitted to hospital on 14 June but his office declined to say what he was being treated for.

With the economy, foreign policy and immigration all going poorly for the president, he’s scrambling before the midterms

Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace”.

He can’t talk about the economy because prices continue to rise faster than wages, which means most Americans are getting poorer. He can’t talk about foreign policy because his war in Iran has been a debacle, his tariffs an utter failure, and he obviously hasn’t settled the war in Ukraine on “day one”. He can’t talk about immigration because his raids and mass deportations have become so unpopular.

About 57% of polled Americans also believe economy is worsening in grim portrait of cost of living crisis, according to Harris survey for the Guardian

Ninety-five per cent of Americans believe the US is suffering an affordability crisis, as many report trouble with the rising cost of groceries and gas, according to an exclusive new poll conducted for the Guardian.

The survey, conducted by Harris Poll, paints a bleak picture of how people feel about the US economy amid the war in Iran and ahead of the key midterm elections this fall.

In wake of primary wins by leftwing candidates in New York and elsewhere, president has resorted to well-worn tactic

Moments after Donald Trump rang the ceremonial opening bell on Monday, starting the trading day from the Oval Office, 232 miles north on Wall Street, the US senator Ted Cruz celebrated the president’s new savings accounts as his administration’s “New Deal”.

“But instead of having government taking care of everyone,” the Republican senator declared, “Trump accounts are about making every child and every American a capitalist.”

Scratch their surface and you see exactly what he’s trying to do: stand up strong for intolerance and corruption

Given how impetuous Donald Trump is, his vice-president, JD Vance, strikes some Americans as a more stable alternative. A good bet, some of the Maga faithful believe, as the 2028 Republican nominee for president, and the eventual occupant of the Oval Office.

Every bit as rightwing as Trump but more serious and predictable – that seems to be Vance’s pitch to the public. And he clearly wants to be president; he’s as ambitious as they come.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Staff decline to give updates on senator’s health and whether he will be at Capitol when Senate returns

Staff for Mitch McConnell said last week that the Kentucky senator was “continuing his recovery” in a hospital while the Senate is out of session. But his office has released no details about the former Republican leader’s condition during his weeks-long hospitalization or whether he will be at the Capitol when the Senate returns next week.

McConnell was admitted to the hospital on 14 June, according to a statement from his office that only said he was “receiving excellent care”. A statement a week later said that he would not be voting that week. And on Thursday, a new statement said that he “continues to improve” and ”appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital”.

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.

‘Haiti is a failed state’, says Carlos Giménez, congressman and Miami Cuban exile, after controversial court ruling

Carlos Giménez, a Republican congressman from Florida, broke with the Trump administration on Sunday, calling on the White House to reconsider its push to eliminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian migrants.

Returning about 350,000 Haitians to their chaotic, dangerous homeland following the US supreme court’s ruling that the Trump administration can cut off temporary legal protections, would be a grave error, Giménez said.

Magazine invites readers to judge Vance’s ‘assessment’ of Trump, whom he called ‘cultural heroin’ during first term

The Atlantic on Saturday republished a JD Vance essay that dismissed Donald Trump as “cultural heroin” exactly 10 years earlier, bringing back to the fore his evolving from a critic of the president to his vice-president.

In an editor’s note, the magazine said it was republishing the essay on the occasion of its 10th anniversary – and the US’s semiquincentennial – “so that our readers can judge for themselves how well his assessment [of Trump] … has stood the test of time”.

The party colors are a surprisingly recent tradition. But do they really represent the diversity of Americans’ beliefs?

Color has long played a role in US politics.

In 1867, US suffragists Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted the yellow color of the sunflower – Kansas’s state flower – during their campaign for women’s voting rights in the state. By the 20th century, suffragists added white and purple to their political “uniforms”: white dresses, standing for purity and moral authority, became the most notable marker of the movement.

The congressman spent four months mysteriously away from work, but he doesn’t seem to think his constituents should get mandated sick days

The mystery of the missing congressman has finally been solved. Almost four months ago Tom Kean Jr, a Republican, vanished from public view. He missed more than 100 votes, all while continuing to collect his full taxpayer-funded salary of $174,000 along with excellent benefits. The only explanation given for his absence was a cryptic statement from his office in late April saying he was dealing with a “personal health matter”. Kean’s father, former New Jersey governor Tom Kean Sr, further told CNN in May that his son was battling a temporary illness and would be back to work soon.

This week, Kean finally resurfaced and explained that he’d been absent due to inpatient treatment for depression. Why hadn’t he said anything about this earlier? Kean said he was “private person by nature”. Which is great, but maybe don’t choose a job in public service in that case.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

As the US celebrates 250 years, the Declaration of Independence has been curiously absent. Yet its language on the consent of the governed is more relevant than ever

It’s America’s birthday. Ear-splitting pyrotechnics will be heard across the land tonight, as they were a few weeks ago, after the cage fight at the White House. On 24 June, the administration launched the Great American State Fair, with “spectacular flyovers” from fighter jets and stealth bombers. Six 18-wheel “Freedom Trucks” are barreling down the highways, bringing history-lite pop-up displays, mainly to red states. Later this summer, we will hear drivers revving their engines, deafeningly, as they leave skid marks around the National Mall during the Indy car race scheduled for 22 August. It’s gonna get loud.

But one guest is apparently not invited to the party. The Declaration of Independence, the reason we are convening, has been curiously absent from the lead-up. That feels strange for a document that essentially rewrote world history.

Investigations into president and corruption charges will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win majority in midterms

Donald Trump’s presidency is facing investigations and corruption charges from a key House Democrat and ex-prosecutors, involving political and personal abuses of power, which legal experts predict will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win the House majority in the midterms.

Legal critics call the scandals dogging the president “target rich” for investigations that Democrats will have a “field day” investigating if they win the House majority. Critics cite, for instance, Trump’s damaging the rule of law by weaponizing the Department of Justice (DoJ) to exact revenge on political foes and protect himself from federal investigations, plus Trump moves to profit in radical ways from his presidency with lucrative and new cryptocurrency ventures.