As reactions, particularly from European leaders and members of Congress, begin to emerge following Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcement, former president Joe Biden has issued his first endorsement of the 2026 midterm cycle.

In a video on Friday, Biden announced his support for Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta’s former mayor who is running in Georgia’s gubernatorial race.

“As mayor of Atlanta, Keisha faced every challenge a leader could face, and then some – a global pandemic, a major cyber-attack on the city system, economic uncertainty that tested every community across Georgia,” Biden said, adding: “She handled the law with steady leadership.”

He went on to say: “And then she came to the White House, served as a senior adviser. And I’ll tell you, those same qualities that made her a great mayor made her invaluable to our administration. Smart, focused, gets things done. Georgia, she’s ready. She’s been ready.”

According to a March 20/20 Insight poll, Bottoms leads her Democratic competitors with 32%, well ahead of former state senator Jason Eves at 14%, former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan at 12%, and former DeKalb county CEO Michael Thurmond at 11%.

Donald Trump has announced that he will be increasing tariffs on cars and trucks from the European Union to 25%.

In a post on Truth Social, the president said:

I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States. The Tariff will be increased to 25%. It is fully understood and agreed that, if they produce Cars and Trucks in U.S.A. Plants, there will be NO TARIFF. Many Automobile and Truck Plants are currently under construction, with over 100 Billion Dollars being invested, A RECORD in the History of Car and Truck Manufacturing. These Plants, staffed with American Workers, will be opening soon — There has never been anything like what is happening in America today!

The US Treasury has warned shippers they could face sanctions if they pay tolls to Iran in exchange for safe transit through the strait of Hormuz, even if those payments are in the form of charitable donations to Iranian NGOs.

In an advisory note, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was aware of Iranian demands for payments for safe passage through the strait. It said Iran could offer “several payment options, including fiat currency, digital assets, offsets, informal swaps, or other in-kind payments, such as nominally charitable donations made to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Bonyad Mostazafan, or Iranian embassy accounts”.

It went on: “OFAC is issuing this alert to warn US and non-US persons about the sanctions risks of making these payments to, or soliciting guarantees from, the Iranian regime for safe passage. These risks exist regardless of payment method.”

Meanwhile, the White House has said it will not detail private diplomatic conversations when Reuters asked about Iran’s new proposal to the United States that was submitted to Pakistani mediators.

“We do not detail private diplomatic conversations. President Trump has been clear that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon, and negotiations continue to ensure the short- and long-term national security of the United States,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Reuters.

“Imminent military strikes” against Iran are on the table for the United States, Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal has said, citing classified briefings and other sources.

Blumenthal, a senior member of the Senate armed services committee, told CNN last night:

I do have the impression from some of the briefings that I have received, as well as other sources, that an imminent military strike is very much on the table.

Blumenthal said this was “deeply disturbing, because it could well involve American sons and daughters in harm’s way and potential massive casualties”.

His comments came after he clashed with defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who testified before the committee yesterday.

He went on:

There really is no coherent strategy, which came across very vividly and graphically in the hearing today with Secretary Hegseth.

And it comes across in the president’s comments, which oscillate between seeming open to negotiation and then foreclosing it entirely and threatening destruction of civilizations.

What you saw … was Secretary Hegseth essentially dissembling and evading pointed questions on the draining of munitions, on the cost of the war, as well as on this absolutely incredible and absurd theory about a pause in the 60 days, which is an absolutely ridiculous interpretation of the law.

But bottom line here, no strategy. And the conflicting and contradictory objectives stated by the president have not been accomplished. None of them really either. As to the enriched uranium or the change of regime, or even as to the missile and drone production.

Diplomatic editor

Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed that it has submitted fresh proposals to Pakistani mediators late on Thursday night and does not regard the diplomatic route as dead.

Details of the Iranian proposals were not divulged but the foreign ministry, in a tactical switch reflecting the government’s assessment that it is in a stronger position than the United States, is focusing on its plans for the strait of Hormuz, rather than representing its proposals for the future of its nuclear program.

A mutual lifting of the US and Iranian blockades, and a reinforcement of the ceasefire in Lebanon would require guarantees from the US and Israel that they are permanently ending the threat to restart military aggression against Iran.

The decision to submit proposals to Pakistan followed an internal debate inside Iran whether it should pursue the diplomatic path at all, and instead rely on the leverage provided by the ad hoc strait of Hormuz blockage.

The foreign minister Abbas Araghchi briefed Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Azerbaijan on its proposals. He also spoke with the EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas who has insisted Iran’s nuclear program cannot be put on the back burner.

The list of calls excluded the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, the countries most furious at the Iranian attacks on their infrastructure.

The UAE diplomatic adviser Anwar Gargash said no promise by Iran in relation to the strait could be trusted. He said: “Without a doubt, after Iran’s treacherous aggression against all its neighbours, no unilateral arrangements from this country are trustworthy or reliable.”

Iran remains exasperated by the inability of the US to adopt a coherent public position after Donald Trump said he opposed Iran being allowed to enrich uranium even for medical purposes, a concession Iran believed the US delegation had already made.

Iranian officials are hoping that Trump will want to end the conflict before his summit meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jinping on 14-15 May.

Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp has said that he doesn’t plan to delay the state’s primary this month to redraw its political maps for this year’s elections, after the supreme court’s landmark ruling yesterday to severely weaken a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act.

“Voting is already underway for the 2026 elections,” Kemp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ahead of Georgia’s primary elections on 19 May.

But, the ruling makes clear it “requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle”, he said.

Praising the supreme court’s decision, Kemp said it “restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges”.

Yesterday, Louisiana moved to postpone its May primaries, as other southern states including Florida are also scrambling to redraw congressional districts in response to the ruling.

Iran has sent its latest proposal to the United States to end the war via Pakistani mediators, state news agency IRNA has reported.

It comes as talks between Washington and Tehran have stalled. Meanwhile, Iran maintains its chokehold on the strait of Hormuz, and the US Navy maintains a blockade to prevent Iran’s oil tankers from getting out to sea.

It also comes as the Trump administration argued yesterday that the war had already ended because of the fragile ceasefire which began in early April, an interpretation that would allow the White House to avoid today’s deadline for having to seek congressional approval to extend the war.

We’ll bring you more on Iran’s latest proposal as we get it.

Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Jon Henley

Donald Trump earlier threatened to withdraw US troops from Italy and Spain a day after saying he was looking at reducing the number deployed in Germany.

The US president’s threat to Germany came after the country’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said America was being “humiliated” by Iran.

Trump has severely criticised Nato allies for not sending their navies to help to open the strait of Hormuz, a crucial commercial shipping corridor.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has spoken out against the US-Israeli war on Iran from the start, and Rome had played a balancing act until late March, when it refused the use of an airbase in Sicily to US planes carrying weapons for Iran.

Asked late yesterday whether he would consider pulling US troops out of Italy and Spain, Trump told reporters:

Probably … look, why shouldn’t I? Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible.

Italy’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, said he did not understand Trump’s motives for the threat to withdraw US troops from Italy and rejected accusations that Rome had not helped the US, especially in relation to maritime security. Crosetto also alluded to Trump’s accusations that European-linked ships had crossed the strait of Hormuz.

“As is clear to everyone, this never happened,” Crosetto told Ansa. “We have also made ourselves available for a mission to protect shipping. This was greatly appreciated by the American military.”

Crosetto added: “The incredible thing is, they’ve used the strait of Hormuz, while we haven’t.”

More on this story here:

Fourteen employees with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency returned to work this week, after spending eight months on administrative leave for signing a public letter criticising the Trump administration.

The so-called “Katrina declaration”, sent last August to members of Congress and a federal council formed to help determine Fema’s future, was written as a rebuke from the workers about the dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

Timed with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the catastrophic storm that killed 1,833 people and devastated parts of New Orleans and the Gulf coast in 2005, it served as a warning that the stage was set for history to repeat itself.

More than 190 current and former Fema employees signed on to the letter. Thirty-six signed their names. Those who were still actively employed at the agency were put on indefinite paid administrative leave one day later.

The US Senate has voted to ban senators and their staff from betting on prediction markets like Kalshi or Polymarket.

The resolution, introduced by Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno, goes into effect immediately and modifies the current rules prohibiting senators from entering into financial deals where the outcome depends on whether a specific event does or does not happen.

“United States senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period,” Moreno said in a statement.

Prediction markets have come under scrutiny recently after users whjo appeared to have advanced knowledge on the situation made substantial bets ahead of the US-Israel war in Iran and the military action in Venezuela earlier this year.

The Department of Justice’s quest to secure sensitive voter data is finding opposition in typically friendly territory – several staunchly conservative states.

As of 1 April, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for failing to turn over full copies of their voter registration lists. The push has hit repeated roadblocks, including legal defeats in California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Arizona and Michigan. But the DoJ is also running into obstacles in some of America’s reddest states, with Trump strongholds Utah, West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky and Idaho all refusing to hand over the requested data.

In their objections, the Republican-controlled states cite their constitutionally guaranteed authority over election administration, as well as concerns over data security, privacy laws, and the questionable legal grounds of the DoJ’s request.

More here:

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the day.

Today marks 60 days since the Trump administration notified Congress that it was carrying out strikes on Iran – meaning that under the War Powers Act of 1973, today is the deadline for Donald Trump to either end the Iran war or seek congressional authorization to extend it.

However, the Trump administration has repeatedly rejected the deadline, with Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, testifying before a heated Senate armed services committee that the ceasefire agreement reached with Iran more than three weeks ago “means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops”.

Hegseths’s comments reflect what a senior Trump administration official told the Guardian earlier: “For war powers resolution purposes, the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated,” the official said.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans again blocked a war powers resolution put forth by Democrat Adam Schiff that would have limited the conflict until Congress authorizes further military action.

This was the sixth time that Democrats have forced a vote on a war powers resolution related to the war in Iran, all of which have failed, mostly along party lines. But Republicans in recent weeks have said they would eventually like to see a vote and two Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky – voted in favor of the resolution on Thursday (one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, opposed it).

“As I have said since these hostilities with Iran began, the president’s authority as commander-in-chief is not without limits,” Collins said on X. “The constitution gives Congress an essential role in decisions of war and peace, and the War Powers Act establishes a clear 60-day deadline for Congress to either authorize or end US involvement in foreign hostilities. That deadline is not a suggestion; it is a requirement.”

In other developments:

• Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in Washington DC, released edited security-camera video of the incident at the White House correspondents’ dinner amid questions about whether or not the suspected gunman, Cole Allen, fired his weapon before being subdued. While the video shows four muzzles flashes from the agent’s gun as he fired at Allen, it was not immediately clear that it does show Allen discharging his weapon after he pointed it at the agent.

• Sean Curran, the director of the US Secret Service, told Fox News that Allen was stopped not by secret service gunfire, but by a box used to transport a metal detector, which he tripped over.

• Congress has passed a 45-day extension of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that grants US intelligence agencies warrantless spying powers.

• Trump has threatened to withdraw troops from Spain and Italy, two countries that countries have been vocally critical of his war in the Middle East. This comes after Trump suggested reviewing US military presence in Germany after the country’s chancellor said America was being “humiliated” by Iran.