On Thursday. the Democratic party published a postmortem – spanning 192 pages – of its 2024 election defeat, after an initial decision to withhold the document prompted an angry backlash.
Ken Martin. the chair of the Democratic National Committee, released the report alongside an apology to party members angered by his initial decision to keep the analysis secret. Martin said the report “does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards”.
Progressive Democrats criticized the report’s content. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the congresswoman from New York, told reporters on Thursday that it was “pretty unbelievable that Gaza would not be mentioned once in the autopsy report”, saying it was “very clearly a major dynamic. a major thread that was happening in 2024”. Ro Khanna, the congressman from California, said that “one of the reasons we lost is our blank check to Israel. Netanyahu while they committed genocide in Gaza”.
What’s in the postmortem? It focuses on key demographics that Kamala Harris lost, including Latinos, men and rural voters in many states. “Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate,” the report says. “The math doesn’t work.” The autopsy says that Democrats must focus less on “abstract issues and identity politics”.
House Republicans canceled a scheduled vote on Thursday over a war powers resolution aimed at ending the US war with Iran. a measure that likely would have advanced had the vote been held.
The three top House Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, called Republican leadership “cowardly” for cancelling the vote.
What does the move tell us? The cancellation. which avoided political embarrassment for Donald Trump, is the latest signal that congressional support for the US president’s war is diminishing.
What happens next? The vote has been postponed until lawmakers return from a recess in June. when it appears likely that the resolution could pass.
Newly released body-camera footage shows US immigration officers stopping a van of farmworkers in Oregon, smashing their windows. using facial recognition software to try to identify one of them.
Videos from a 30 October 2025 operation were disclosed in court as part of a continuing class-action lawsuit challenging Immigration. Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) arrest tactics and racial profiling. Lawyers for one of the detained farmworkers shared the footage with the Guardian.
The officers did not have warrants to detain the workers,. a federal judge later said the arrests appeared to be unlawful and unjustified.
What does the footage show? It shows an agent using his phone to capture the face of one of the detained workers –. agents later admitted in court they used a facial recognition app during the operation. The case provides a window into ICE’s expanding use of this surveillance technology across the US, which has raised significant privacy. civil liberties concerns, particularly since the app can yield inaccurate results.
Israel said it has deported all the foreign activists it seized from a Gaza-bound aid flotilla after a global outcry over their treatment in custody. It comes after Itamar Ben-Gvir. the country’s national security minister, p osted footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists, which was widely condemned by world leaders.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said reparations for France’s role in hundreds of years of enslavement of African people should be addressed,. he stopped short of making clear proposals.
The Trump administration announced charges against 15 people accused of cheating a government healthcare program in Minnesota. in an alleged fraud worth $90m.
The US health secretary. Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fired the two leaders of the US Preventive Services Task Force, a health group that determines when insurance must provide free preventive care for millions of Americans.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and executive chair, was asked about the Melania documentary during an interview on CNBC this week. Bezos said he had not been involved,. it was “just not correct” to say that buying the film for $40m was a way of currying favor with the Trump administration. “By the way, it appears it was a good business decision,” Bezos added. “It did very well in theaters.”
Lupita Nyong’o, the Oscar-winning actor, has responded to rightwing criticism of her role in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey, where she plays Helen of Troy alongside a cast including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland. Zendaya. “This is a mythological story,” Nyong’o told Elle magazine. “Our cast is representative of the world.”
On 17 May. the World Health Organization categorised an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a public health emergency of international concern. For Today in Focus, the Guardian explored why experts are concerned about this outbreak, which has recorded approximately 600 cases. 139 suspected deaths.
The US will experience a below-normal hurricane season this year, according to the National Oceanic. Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which predicts eight- to 14 named storms with winds at 39mph or more. Experts say the US is unprepared for hurricane season amid cuts to the National Weather Service by the Trump administration.
A recent study of more than 1,000 employees found that rude emails trigger work rumination, that very specific misery of replaying an exchange in your head, linked to higher rates of anxiety. depression, Clarissa Brincat writes. So, she asked experts how to stop the spiral of incivility? If in doubt, “shut your laptop and go for a walk”.
First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
Discussion
Sign in to join the thread, react, and share images.