Key events
Former vice-president Kamala Harris plans to use a high-profile speech Wednesday to sharply criticize president Donald Trump amid speculation about whether she will mount another presidential campaign or opt to run for California governor.
Harris will address the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office that grew in part from Harris’ run for San Francisco district attorney in the early 2000s, AP reported.
Her speech comes the day after Trump reached 100 days in office. It is expected to be her most extensive public remarks since leaving office in January following her defeat to Trump, with planned critiques of the Republican president’s handling of the economy, US institutions and foreign policy.
Harris is ramping up her public presence as Democrats nationally search for a path forward after November’s election, in which Republicans also won control of Congress. While a slate of high-profile Democrats – from governors to businessmen – seek leadership roles within the party, the former vice-president retains unique influence and would reshape any future race she chooses to enter.
Oliver Laughland
The first few months of 2025 have been tumultuous for Sheriff Bill Rogers, the chief law officer of Columbus county in North Carolina.
In February, his department settled a lawsuit accusing Columbus jail deputies of neglecting the care of a county inmate who was almost beaten to death in 2023. Then in March, a group of Roger’s deputies were accused of assault during the arrest of a 57-year-old who claimed he was punched in the back of the head and left bloody after allegedly running a stop sign.
Those episodes follow years of scandal.
In 2023, Rogers’ predecessor in the top job was forced to resign – twice – after recordings emerged of him describing African American deputies on his force as “Black bastards”. The department was also under a recent federal investigation over allegations of sprawling embezzlement.
Despite this track record, the Columbus county sheriff’s office scored a recent win under the new administration of Donald Trump.
The US supreme court is set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education.
Organizers of the proposed school and a state school board that backs it have appealed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the establishment of St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, Reuters reported. That court found that the proposed religious charter school would violate the US constitution’s first amendment limits on government involvement in religion.
Charter schools in Oklahoma are considered public schools under state law and draw funding from the state government. The proposed charter school has divided officials in Republican-governed Oklahoma. It is being challenged by the state’s Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond but Republican governor Kevin Stitt has backed it, as has Republican president Donald Trump’s administration.
St Isidore, planned as a joint effort by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, would offer virtual learning from kindergarten through high school. Its plan to integrate religion into its curriculum would make it the first religious charter school in the United States. The proposed school has never been operational amid legal challenges to its establishment.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he thinks President Vladimir Putin wants to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite recent attacks against the beleaguered nation.
Trump responded “I think he does” when asked whether he thinks Putin wants to make peace during an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran.
“If it weren’t for me, I think he’d want to take over the whole country,” Trump said. “I will tell you, I was not happy when I saw Putin shooting missiles into a few towns and cities.”
Trump warns ‘nothing will stop me’ at rally to celebrate 100 days in office
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
Let’s start with the president’s Michigan rally last night. Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”
The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.
Trump’s choice of Michigan was a recognition not only of how the battleground state helped propel him to victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in last November’s election, but its status as a potential beneficiary of a tariffs policy which, he claims, will revive US manufacturing.
But the cavernous sports and expo centre in the city of Warren, near Detroit, was only half full for the rally, and a steady stream of people left before the end of his disjointed and meandering 89-minute address.
“We’re here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country!” Trump declared. “In 100 days, we have delivered the most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years.”
The 45th and 47th president falsely accused the previous administration of engineering massive border invasion and allowing gangs, cartels and terrorists to infiltrate communities. “Democrats have vowed mass invasion and mass migration,” he said. “We are delivering mass deportation.”
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “Trump’s pathetic display tonight will do nothing to help the families he started screwing over 100 days ago.
“Michiganders and the rest of the country see right through Trump, and as a result, he has the lowest 100-day approval rating in generations. If he’s not already terrified of what the ballot box will bring between now and the midterm elections, he should be.”
Read our full report of the event here:
In other news:
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As Trump defended his broadly unpopular handling of the economy, he criticized Fed chair Jerome Powell, saying: “I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job, but I won’t say that.” The businessman president who used bankruptcy law to rescue his failed enterprises six times added: “I know much more about interest rates than he does”.
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Trump mistakenly attacked the Michigan representative John James, calling the Republican he had endorsed “a lunatic” for trying to impeach him. That was someone else.
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Trump supporters praised by the president at a rally included the former member of a violent cult who founded Blacks for Trump, and a retired autoworker who once told people to read David Duke’s “honest and fair” book about race.
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The US Department of Justice has begun the first criminal prosecutions of immigrants for entering a newly declared military buffer zone created along the border with Mexico, according to court filings.
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Trump called Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos on Tuesday morning to complain about a report that the company planned to display prices that show the impact of tariffs. Trump told reporters later that Bezos “was very nice, he was terrific” during their call, and “he solved the problem very quickly”.
