Plaintiffs allege ‘profound’ chilling effect on protected work of international criminal court officials and others

Two US advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, alleging that sanctions targeting Palestinian rights organizations, international criminal court (ICC) officials and a UN expert have unlawfully violated Americans’ first amendment rights.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, argues that the administration’s sweeping 2025 sanctions package has had a “profound” chilling effect on Palestine-related advocacy, compelling Americans to sever professional relationships and abandon constitutionally protected work.

A government that demands instant obedience while concealing its identity cannot expect trust – or escape responsibility for the consequences

There are videos that do more than document a story. They alter the way we understand it.

Ronaldo Salgado spent 7 July searching for his father. At the scene of a shooting in Houston’s East End, he found his father’s work van behind police tape. Later, he saw a video online: a man had been shot in the street. Ronaldo could not identify him by sight. He recognized Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by his voice, crying for help.

Biden sued ex-CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne over claim that Biden sought bribe from Iran government in 2021

Hunter Biden says he is “grateful that the rule of law prevailed” in a defamation lawsuit that recently netted him a judgment of $1.7m in punitive damages from the former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

Biden made that comment in a social media post that served as his first comments about the judgment, which a federal judge in California handed down on Friday.

Trump’s former personal attorney has a vast slate of conflicts of interest. Will lawmakers do their job in his confirmation hearings?

Todd Blanche is the most conflicted nominee for attorney general the US Congress has yet to encounter. As the former private attorney for Donald Trump, Blanche has been an unflappable ally for the president since 2023, when he left his private firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, to represent Trump in the hush-money prosecution brought against him by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. He went on to represent Trump in two other criminal prosecutions – the Mar-a-Lago classified documents prosecution, and the January 6 prosecution, both brought against Trump by the special counsel Jack Smith.

As both deputy attorney general and as acting head of the justice department since April, when Pam Bondi was fired as attorney general by Donald Trump, Blanche has unabashedly continued his advocacy work for his former client through other means. He has signed off on a settlement between the IRS and Donald Trump regarding the latter’s taxes, that would ban the IRS from pursuing litigation against Trump, his family or his businesses forever. That settlement has now been ruled by a federal judge to be self-dealing; she referred the case to the Florida Bar Association. The New York Bar has issued a letter saying that Blanche is unfit for office.

Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and the faculty director of its Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law

Judge says he’s granting request to dismiss prosecutions even though request is clearly based not on facts or the law

A federal judge nominated by Donald Trump during his first term reluctantly agreed on Friday to grant the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions against leaders of the Proud Boys who were convicted by a jury of serious crimes during the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters on 6 January 2021.

The US district judge Timothy Kelly noted in a seven-page memorandum that the Proud Boy leaders Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl were all convicted of multiple crimes, including seditious conspiracy, and a fourth member of the group, Dominic Pezzola, was convicted of assaulting an officer and “breaking a Capitol window, thereby helping to create the first entry point through which hundreds of rioters streamed into the building”.

President says he would refuse to sign housing bill without passage of voting legislation, but without veto it will still become law

A major housing bill has automatically become law without Donald Trump’s signature, after the president said he would refuse to sign the legislation because Congress has not approved new restrictions on voting nationwide.

The measure, known as the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, is the biggest change to federal policy for buyers, renters and homebuilders in decades, and Congress approved it with large margins last month after lengthy negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.

US president contested judge’s order to release money after Carroll’s 2023 sexual abuse and defamation trial against him

A Manhattan federal appeals court late on Wednesday rejected Donald Trump’s latest bid to delay the payment of more than $5m to E Jean Carroll following her successful 2023 sexual abuse and defamation trial against him.

The US court of appeals for the second circuit made its decision hours after Trump filed paperwork fighting Manhattan federal court judge Lewis Kaplan’s order releasing this money – which has been held in a court-controlled account since June 2023. Trump denies all wrongdoing.

Order frees funds from Trump’s 2023 sexual abuse and defamation verdict after supreme court appeal failed

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A Manhattan federal court judge on Wednesday ordered the release of the more than $5m Donald Trump owes E Jean Carroll following her successful 2023 sexual abuse and defamation trial against him. Less than an hour after the judge issued his order, Trump filed paperwork indicating he was appealing the decision.

Trump had deposited this $5m jury award, as well as 11% interest, into a court-held account some six weeks after Carroll’s courtroom victory. Judge Lewis Kaplan’s order directs the disbursement of these court controlled funds, which now total some $5.8m due to interest accrual.

Trump’s request stems from the supreme court’s 29 June decision not to review his appeal

• US judge orders release of $5.8m Trump owes E Jean Carroll after court loss

Donald Trump’s latest effort to delay the release of more than $5m in court-held funds that he owes E Jean Carroll failed on Wednesday.

The US president asked Manhattan federal court judge Lewis Kaplan late on Tuesday not to order the release of these court-held funds, which a jury awarded Carroll in her successful 2023 sexual abuse and defamation civil trial against him; this money also includes interest. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

Trump administration requested pause on lower court’s ruling after Trump’s name was removed from facade in June

Weeks after workers pried his name from the Kennedy Center’s facade, Donald Trump lost another round in his fight to get it back. A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the administration’s argument that the removal was damaging the arts institution’s finances.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the US ⁠court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit denied a request from the Trump administration to pause a ⁠lower court judge’s order in a lawsuit brought by Joyce Beatty, a Democratic representative and Kennedy Center board ‌member. Trump’s name was ‌removed from the iconic Washington theater center’s facade and signage last month. ‌US district judge Christopher Cooper ordered the removal in May, and also blocked Trump’s plans to close the center for two years of renovations starting on 4 July.

Chokwe Antar Lumumba had previously called FBI sting while mayor of Jackson a ‘political prosecution’

The former mayor of Mississippi’s capital city pleaded guilty on Monday to bribery, wire fraud and money laundering, after saying a corruption case brought against him two years earlier was a “political prosecution”.

Chokwe Antar Lumumba was the mayor of Jackson in November 2024 when he was indicted by a federal grand jury after an FBI investigation and sting operation in which he and two other elected Democrats allegedly accepted illegal payments to secure a real estate deal.

Experts say Ratepayer Protection Act ‘posing as a consumer protection measure’ and will raise prices on working people

The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, designed to shield individuals from soaring electricity prices amid the datacenter boom, would fail to meaningfully protect the public from the centers’ true costs, consumer advocates warn.

The bill, backed by some in big tech such as Microsoft, moved through a House subcommittee in mid-June, and a vote in full committee scheduled for 1 July was delayed. Its measures are largely voluntary, meaning the state utility commissions that set electric rates can ignore the law altogether.

America at 250 is not a finished monument, but a structure still under repair

To call this Saturday the nation’s 250th birthday is to indulge a comfortable fiction. 1776 was a declaration, not a birth certificate – and the founders wrote its claims of human equality while this nation enslaved human beings. A truer account of American freedom runs through 1619 and Juneteenth, when Americans forced the country, at last, to begin making its promises answerable to reality.

So I’m not in the mood to celebrate “America 250”, and I’m not alone. The affection is thin this summer: the Pew Research Center found that 69% of Americans were dissatisfied with the country’s direction early this year. That is not ingratitude. Sometimes a sour mood is simply clear vision.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

In latest legal twist, appeals panel rules US does not have to reinstate signage on climate, immigration and slavery

The Trump administration does not have to reinstate materials related to climate change, immigration and slavery that it has removed from national parks, a US appeals court ruled on Thursday.

It’s the latest twist in a legal battle over how history is remembered at American public monuments.

The restoration of capital punishment in 1976 was based on a fantasy of fairness. It must be abolished

Thursday will mark the 50th anniversary of the rebirth of the death penalty in the United States. On 2 July 1976, the supreme court handed down decisions in five cases that laid out a formula for passing constitutional muster.

The formula the court devised and explained at length in one of those cases, Gregg v Georgia, was built on a wish and a prayer. It was a fantasy of fairness, powerful enough, its authors thought, to keep capital punishment alive and to lend it legitimacy, but it was a fantasy nonetheless.

Austin Sarat, associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty

Democracies rarely last, but ours has. That alone is worth celebrating

One reason to celebrate America’s national big birthday – our 250th on the Fourth of July – is to honor the unusual longevity of our democratic experiment. Democracies rarely last, but ours has. Even if we know its flawed history – the land grab and slaughter of the indigenous population; slavery; enduring racial, gender and economic inequalities – it’s hard to fault the admirable, high-minded idealism of the Bill of Rights and the US constitution.

I’m all for celebrating democracy. The bicentennial was fun. I lived outside a small rural town where there was a parade, a fife and drum corps, tricornered hats, flags and fireworks. Then president Gerald Ford had sponsored civil rights legislation. Roe v Wade was three years old. There were brilliant and honorable judges serving on the US supreme court. The Vietnam war had ended. Obviously there were problems: our growing military presence in Central America, the bankrupting and colonization of American inner cities, growing disparities. Even so, there was a hope in the air, a sense that things might be looking up.