Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, spoke on the Senate floor for more than 25 hours, the longest speech ever given in Senate history. Starting his speech on Monday evening in Washington, vowing to remain on the Senate floor as long as he was 'physically able', Booker spoke in protest at what he called the 'grave and urgent' danger that Donald Trump's presidential administration poses to democracy and the American people. In 1957, Strom Thurmond, a Republican from South Carolina, gave an anti-civil rights speech that lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes

• Senate Republicans consider joining Democrats to oppose Trump over tariffs

Beware the backlash strategies used by Trump and Berlusconi. It is vital that the National Rally leader isn’t able to capitalise on this verdict

The verdict is in: the National Rally (NR) and its leader, Marine Le Pen, have been found to have employed fictitious European parliament assistants between 2004 and 2016. The fraudulent scheme enabled the misappropriation of around €2.9m in European funds, and Le Pen has now been barred from holding public office for five years. Could this mark the end for the National Rally? Highly unlikely – and the reason lies in the party’s strategy.

During the trial, Le Pen deliberately maintained silence in response to the allegations – a tactic some outlets dismissed as evidence of a weak defence, even questioning her credibility. Yet this quiet is far from a sign of weakness; it reflects a long-established approach that consistently shuns conventional manoeuvres in favour of an intentionally unpredictable stance.

Georgios Samaras is assistant professor of public policy at the Policy Institute, King’s College London

I have two degrees, two books to my name and I write for the Guardian. Yet I spent time in care, live at home and struggle for money. Can Karl Marx help me make sense of myself?

I have been obsessed with and confused by social class all my life. Both of my grandparents grew up in Liverpool in the 1930s in traditionally working-class households. They were clever and conscientious and managed to earn scholarships to university, eventually becoming teachers. My parents have university degrees and own property; one of them is now a judge. To most people, all these things place me squarely and categorically in the middle class. But I was in special educational schools from the age of nine, spent part of my childhood in care, left education altogether at 14 and collected the dole until getting my first job in a cotton mill. All these things make me a dyed-in-the-wool prole.

And yet I have two degrees, I have written two books and I freelance for the Guardian – you can’t get more insufferably bourgeois than that. At the same time, I am pushing 40 and living with my mum because I can’t afford to rent anything larger than a broom cupboard, so I feel as though I am in class limbo – fitting in with everyone and no one at the same time.

We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.

This week, from 2022: In northern Norway, trees are rapidly taking over the tundra and threatening an ancient way of life that depends on snow and ice

By Ben Rawlence. Read by Christien Anholt

Liberal judge says victory is against ‘unprecedented attack on our democracy’ after defeating Brad Schimel in the most expensive judicial election in US history

Susan Crawford won the race for a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court on Tuesday, a major win for Democrats who had framed the race as a referendum on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s popularity.

Crawford, a liberal judge from Dane county, defeated Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general and conservative judge from Waukesha county, after Musk and groups associated with the tech billionaire spent millions to boost his candidacy in what became the most expensive judicial contest in American history.

Republican defections would amount to rare public rebuke as concerns mount over impact of president’s plans

• US politics live – latest updates

On the eve of Donald Trump’s so-called “liberation day” for tariffs, a handful of Senate Republicans are debating whether to defy the president and join Democrats to stop the US from imposing levies on Canadian imports.

The resolution, offered by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, would terminate the emergency order that Trump is using to justify tariffs against Canada, citing the flow of fentanyl across the US’s northern border. The vote is largely symbolic – the House is not expected to take up the measure – but several defections would amount to a rare and notable rebuke of the president by his own party.

Torrential rains are expected next month, but many at the epicentre in Mandalay and Sagaing are still sleeping in the streets

The death toll from the worst earthquake to hit Myanmar in a century is expected to surpass 3,000 on Wednesday, as humanitarian agencies urged other countries to ramp up aid ahead of the monsoon rains.

Close to the epicentre, in the decimated cities of Mandalay and Sagaing, traumatised survivors slept in the street, with the stench of corpses trapped under the rubble permeating the disaster zone. Water, food and medicine are in short supply, and the monsoon could hit in May.

The US-Canadian dual citizen speculates he may be ‘barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor’ after his European tour, after years of speaking against Trump

Neil Young has shared his concerns of being barred from the US after his European tour later this year, thanks to his outspoken critiques of Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, on his website Neil Young Archives, the 79-year-old musician – who has dual Canadian-American citizenship – wrote of his fears after the recent spate of people being detained and deported upon entering the US. These incidents have been credited to vague or unspecified visa issues, but have frequently affected individuals who have criticised the Trump administration either publicly or in messages on their phone read by immigration officers.

The parliamentary leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, has been banned from public office for five years for embezzlement, ruining her chance of a presidential run. Angelique Chrisafis reports

It is a sentence that has prompted anger among rightwing leaders across the world and led to accusations that democracy is being threatened. This week, Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the National Rally (RN), the largest opposition party in the French parliament, was banned for five years from public office for embezzlement. Along with more than 20 others, she was found to have used money for European parliament assistants to pay party workers.

The shock sentence could end Le Pen’s hopes of running for president in 2027. She is now appealing and has hit back furiously, as have her supporters and allies. Some of her support could hurt her more than it helps, however. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in response that “more and more European capitals are going down the path of violating democratic norms”. While Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán have also weighed in.

Senators propose ‘hard-hitting’ secondary sanctions and say ‘Russia is the aggressor’; ‘coalition of the willing’ moves forward. What we know on day 1,134

Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said that although no signs of life had been detected, the search for survivors in the rubble of a skyscraper that collapsed during the 7.7 magnitude Myanmar earthquake will continue as experts 'still have hope'. He added that 12 bodies have been found, but that the search for survivors is the priority.

• ‘It’s beyond description’: Bodies pile up in mass graves as Myanmar grapples with quake toll

• Myanmar earthquake death toll tops 2,000, as health system ‘overwhelmed’

School principals are resilient but, in an alarming number of cases, their job harms them. We would not tolerate these conditions in other workplaces

I’ve been lucky. I’ve enjoyed a rewarding career in education, including almost 15 years as a principal in the Northern Territory and the ACT. I’ve worked with wonderful teachers and administrative staff, and shared in the successes of hundreds of young people and their families as they grow and graduate high school, going on to further study, employment and life adventures.

I’ve also experienced verbal and physical abuse, aggression and violence from students and their carers, directed at me and my colleagues in the course of my work as a school leader. I once regarded these occasional events as part of the job, normal in our frontline occupation. I now think we have grown complacent about the levels of violence toward a predominantly female workforce that we would not tolerate in other workplaces. As the latest data from the Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) annual Principal Health, Safety and Wellbeing report, released this week, shows, things are getting worse for my profession.

Óscar Arias, 84, who won Nobel peace prize in 1987, said US president was behaving like ‘a Roman emperor’

Former Costa Rican president and Nobel winner Óscar Arias said on Tuesday that the US had revoked his visa to enter the country, weeks after he criticized Donald Trump on social media saying he was behaving like “a Roman emperor”.

Arias, 84, was president between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010. A self-declared pacifist, he won the 1987 Nobel peace prize for his role in brokering peace during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s.

Coalition senator Susan McDonald told a gas industry conference in Sydney the Coalition government’s plan if elected. Follow today’s news live

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Foreign minister Penny Wong has told RN Breakfast says Labor is “realistic” on what outcomes the government could achieve on tariffs with the Trump administration.

We’ll keep working hard for the best outcome, but I think all of us are realistic. As the prime minister made it clear yesterday, we are not willing to trade away the things that make Australia the best country in the world, like our healthcare system. We don’t want the Americanisation of our healthcare system. We won’t be weakening our biosecurity laws, and we won’t be trading away our PBS.

He made a similar submission, and what happened to real wages over the last three years? Real wages have dropped in this country, and workers have seen the greatest drop in their standard of living over three years.

The Fair Work Commission are an independent body. They shouldn’t be politicised. That is why they are independent.

Defence secretary’s trip to Asia shows the Trump administration is engaged with the region, but analysts warn Taipei to tread carefully

On Tuesday China’s military launched joint drills around Taiwan, sending ships, planes and some bizarre propaganda videos across the strait to both warn and punish Taiwan’s government over what Beijing calls “separatist activity”.

The purported provocation was recent assertiveness by Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, who in March designated China a “foreign hostile force” and announced 17 measures to counter its espionage and influence operations.

• Real Madrid 4-4 Real Sociedad (agg 5-4)
• Defender heads dramatic extra-time winner

At one minute past midnight a self-declared madman sent the Santiago Bernabéu into a state of delirium and Real Madrid into the final of the Copa del Rey. El Loco leapt above the Real Sociedad defence and into the stands at the north end of this stadium, where supporters had seen their team go and do it again, their way. It had been long, it had been wild, and at the end of the night, somehow they were the ones celebrating, which it seems they always are. Madrid did not win and were not always very good until they were irresistible, but it was enough.

Three times they had trailed but ultimately a draw, secured by the thumping forehead of Antonio Rüdiger in the 115th minute was enough. A game that went from 0-1 to 1-1, 1-3 to 3-3, and then 3-4 finally finished 4-4 deep into extra time.

London PhD student convicted of 10 rapes may have 60 more victims, force fears

More than 20 women have contacted police to say they fear they may have been attacked by the serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, with detectives fearing there may be even more victims to come.

Zou, 28, was convicted last month of raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2024.

Trump administration begins reducing Health and Human Services workforce as Kennedy plans up to 10,000 job cuts

Thousands of Health and Human Services (HHS) employees across the country are being dismissed on Tuesday as the Trump administration begins implementing its workforce-reduction plan, which could ultimately remove 10,000 staff members from the department through forced layoffs.

The job cuts mark the first tangible impact of the health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s departmental overhaul announced last week, landing just days after Donald Trump moved to strip collective-bargaining rights from workers at HHS and other federal agencies.

Ruling does not guarantee Columbia University protester will be moved out of a detention facility in Louisiana

A federal judge has ruled that the legal battle over Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation should continue to play out in New Jersey, rejecting the Trump administration’s bid to transfer the Columbia University protester’s case to Louisiana.

In a written decision on Tuesday, the US district judge Michael Farbiarz in Newark said the jurisdiction over the case should remain in New Jersey since Khalil was being held there at the time his lawyers filed their habeas corpus petition. The judge described the government’s argument otherwise as “unpersuasive”.

• Kai Tak Sports Park favourite to stage event post-2028
• Stadium to host Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool in July

Hong Kong has emerged as a candidate to stage future Nations Championship finals at its new Kai Tak Sports Park and would be an ideal British & Irish Lions stopover, according to a senior World Rugby executive.

The inaugural Nations Championship finals – the biennial playoffs among the world’s leading international sides – is to be held in London in 2026 with Qatar lined up for 2028 but the Hong Kong stadium is an increasingly popular suggestion for subsequent editions.

At the weekend the lasting shot was Ryan Yates haring towards the Nottingham Forest supporters in celebration and here another episode at breakneck speed earned victory. This time the subject was Anthony Elanga, who tore up the City Ground turf, eating up 85 metres in nine exhilarating seconds, to score the only goal of the game against his former club and maintain Forest’s unlikely push to qualify for the Champions League.

The other moment that Forest may look back on as pivotal if they go on to earn a place in the game’s grandest club competition arrived six minutes and 18 seconds into stoppage time. Harry Maguire, thrown up front as an unconventional striker, a needs-must move by Ruben Amorim, prodded the ball goalwards but Murillo hacked it off the line with almost the last kick of the game. A few seconds later, with Forest’s first league double over United since 1991-92, when Brian Clough was in charge, secured, Rockin’ All Over the World blared over the speakers and the locals set off a round of fireworks that soared into the sky above Trent Bridge.

The Arsenal fans had come to see Bukayo Saka and when he took off his tracksuit, primed to enter as a 66th‑minute substitute, red shirt vividly lighting the scene, it is fair to say there was a reaction. It was mainly release. The three months without Saka have been hard, ­Arsenal’s Premier League title challenge slipping away as he recovered from a ruptured hamstring.

There was certainly a script to be written and, Saka being Saka, he set about it. Arsenal have an incredible home record in the league against Fulham – 24 wins, seven draws and no defeats before this. They were on their way to another victory thanks to Mikel Merino’s heavily deflected goal on 37 minutes, the latest return from the club’s makeshift No 9.

Exclusive: State department said to have raised concerns over whether new act infringes on freedom of expression

US state department officials have challenged Britain’s communications regulator over the impact on freedom of expression created by new online safety laws, the Guardian understands.

A group of officials from the state department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) recently met Ofcom in London. It is understood that they raised the issue of the new online safety act and how it risked infringing free speech.

The state has one of the highest US rates of substance use disorders and ranks last for access to treatment. These initiatives are changing what rehab looks like

Oregon has for years struggled with a drug crisis, reporting one of the highest rates of substance use disorders in the US and ranking last in the nation for access to treatment.

The problem is systemic, rooted in decades of failure to invest in the level of behavioral health services needed for people with mental illnesses and addiction. The Pacific north-west state’s significant affordable housing shortage has compounded the challenges, as people languish on the streets without care. Many drug users spiral downward until they overdose, wind up in jail or prison or are forced into Oregon’s overcrowded psychiatric system.

Can moderate Democrats, plotting their path back to power, convincingly make a populist pivot?

Progressives have plenty of bad ideas that should be axed, but populism without an economic promise is a bloodless bleat.

It wasn’t long ago that Democratic party moderates expressed ambivalence toward the working class. In 2016, Chuck Schumer summed up the party’s attitude by predicting that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia”.

Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623.

In North Carolina, kids affected by Hurricane Helene are putting this method, often inaccessible, to the test

On a winter afternoon at the old Methodist church in Swannanoa, North Carolina, a group of young children gathered around a special sandbox. The sand was silky and lavender-scented. The toys inside were carefully chosen: small sections of wooden fence, fist-sized plastic houses, tea lights with battery-operated flames, matchbox-sized police cars and construction machines.

In the wake of Hurricane Helene last autumn, these objects took on new meaning in the town of 5,000 miles (8,000km) east of Asheville. The storm downed thousands of trees and knocked out power and water for weeks. Driving water, wind and mudslides swept away people, buildings and fences.

US climate agency upended as Doge efforts to slash federal government compromise email security

A sense of chaos has gripped the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), one of the world’s premier research agencies, with key staff hastily fired and then rehired, cuts to vital weather forecasting operations and even a new, unsecured server that led to staff being deluged by obscene spam emails.

Noaa is currently being upended by Donald Trump’s desire to slash the federal government workforce, with more than 1,000 people already fired or resigning from the agency and 1,000 more staffers are expected to be removed as the purge continues. In total, this represents around 20% of the Noaa’s workforce.

Trustees aren’t academics – and they’re often political wolves in sheep’s clothing. We need reform to save the American university as we know it

Late on Friday evening, the trustees of Columbia University announced that its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, was leaving her post.

Six days earlier, she had convened an emergency meeting with 75 faculty members after the university had cravenly surrendered to the demands of the Trump administration in the hopes of recovering $400m in federal grants and contracts. The president and her staff called their predicament “heartbreaking” and sought to reassure faculty that academic freedom and departmental autonomy remained intact.

Irish publisher receives award for small presses for Gaëlle Bélem’s There’s a Monster Behind the Door

Irish publisher Bullaun Press has won the Republic of Consciousness prize for small presses with the book There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert.

There’s a Monster Behind the Door is a “rollicking, sardonic picaresque”, said judge Houman Barekat. “The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it’s also tremendous fun – darkly funny, acerbic, energetic.”

Grant Paterson, 54, from South Lanarkshire, was pulled out from rubble on final day of visit

A Scottish tourist who suffered severe burns in a suspected gas explosion at a building in Rome has died of his injuries.

Grant Paterson, 54, was admitted to hospital on 23 March after the explosion and subsequent collapse of the block of flats where he was staying, in the Monteverde district.

Silver fire leading to fears about Methuselah, a nearly 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine in eastern part of state

Firefighters have managed to make “strong progress” containing a fire burning through eastern California near the world’s oldest trees, but the blaze remains an active threat, officials said.

Since igniting on Sunday afternoon, the Silver fire has scorched nearly 1,600 acres (647 hectares) in the eastern Sierra Nevada and forced residents of about 800 homes to evacuate. Strong winds fanned the flames, which burned through dry grass and brush in Inyo county, threatening neighborhoods, endangered species and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.

Lucy Osborne tells high court she was ‘taken aback’ at number of people in contact over the actor’s alleged sexual misconduct

A Guardian journalist who has worked on high-profile investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct by men said the volume of fresh leads received after writing about Noel Clarke was the most she had ever witnessed.

Lucy Osborne, who, with Sirin Kale, carried out the Guardian’s investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against the Doctor Who actor, told the high court that she was “taken aback” by how many people got in touch after publication of the first article.

Senior doctor who saw bodies says men appeared to have been ‘executed’, adding to evidence of potential war crime

Some of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave nine days ago in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two eyewitnesses.

The witness accounts add to an accumulating body of evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March, when Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance crews and civil defence rescue workers were sent to the scene of an airstrike in the early hours of the morning in the al-Hashashin district of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

Unofficial Trump adviser’s cost-cutting team to finalize shuttering the foreign aid agency on which millions depend

• US politics live – latest updates

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is finalizing the dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development, ordering the firings of thousands of local workers and US diplomats and civil servants assigned to the agency overseas, two former top USAID officials and a source with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday.

On Friday, Congress was notified that almost all of USAID’s own employees were being fired by September, all of its overseas offices shut, and some functions absorbed into the state department.

The US president wields tariffs not as a policy tool but as an instrument of pressure, rewarding loyalty and punishing defiance – even among allies

Donald Trump has probably not read much Michel Foucault. But he appears to embody the French philosopher’s claim that “politics is the continuation of war by other means”. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his fondness for tariffs. He presents taxing foreign imports as a way to rebuild the American economy in favour of blue-collar workers left behind by free trade and globalisation. Yet he plainly thinks that politics is not about truth or justice. It is about leverage and supremacy.

Britain is learning first-hand that Mr Trump, with his us-versus-them framing and taste for spectacle, is an accidental Foucauldian – using tariffs as tools of loyalty and dominance, even against allies. If Mr Trump follows through on his threat to impose a 20% tariff on all imports, UK growth will suffer. The effect depends on the response. No British retaliation would mean GDP 0.4% lower this year and 0.6% next. A global trade war would push that to 0.6% and 1%. Either outcome would wipe out the government’s fiscal headroom. But while British policymakers fret over the shrinking margins of fiscal rules, Mr Trump sees no need to cloak power in objectivity.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The far-right leader has been banned from running for office for five years after an EU parliament fake jobs scam

After a nine-week trial, the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was this week found guilty of the embezzlement of European parliamentary funds through a fake jobs scam of an unprecedented scale and duration. She was banned from running for office for five years with immediate effect, which could prevent her making a fourth bid for the French presidency in 2027.

She has said she will appeal against the verdict and sentence, which also included a four-year prison term – with two years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet – and €100,000 (£84,000) fine.

No 10 says deal to cede UK’s last African colony now being finalised after months of doubt

Donald Trump has signed off the UK’s handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, Downing Street has indicated, paving the way for the UK to cede sovereignty over its last African colony after a six-month standoff.

Under the terms of the deal, the UK will give up control of the Chagos archipelago while paying to maintain control of a joint US-UK military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, under a 99-year lease.

• Motion on ban will be tabled until May
• Eagles have used play with great success

The future of the tush push won’t be decided in the immediate future. NFL team owners had been set to vote on Green Bay’s proposal to ban the play that has helped the Philadelphia Eagles win one Super Bowl and reach another, but the motion was tabled until May. ESPN reported that 16 teams currently support a ban on the rush push. The NFL requires the approval of 24 teams to pass a change in rules.

Also on Tuesday, team owners approved modifying the kickoff rule, expanding replay assist and revising overtime rules.

Official says Kilmer Armado Abrego-Garcia, who lived in Maryland with his wife and child, is in El Salvador prison due to ‘oversight’

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump’s administration acknowledged on Monday in court documents that a Maryland man with protected status was deported to El Salvador and blamed an “administrative error”.

The administration also said it is unable to bring him back because US courts lack jurisdiction now that he is in Salvadoran custody.

• Premier League updates from the 8pm BST kick-off
• Live scores | Read Football Daily | And email Scott

2 min: Gibbs-White chases a long pass down the left. He can’t get past De Ligt, who initially looked out of position and did well to get back to stop the Forest man nipping away.

Manchester United get the ball rolling. Nuno looks relaxed in the dugout, Amorim smiling as he prowls the touchline. Here we go, then.