The manosphere has Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome

Poor Taylor Swift. The pop star is a billionaire and one of the most successful people on the planet. She has an army of devoted fans who happily bankrupt themselves to follow her on record-breaking tours around the world. A German city just temporarily renamed itself Swiftkirchen in her honour. The Federal Reserve has credited her for boosting the economy. And yet, when it comes to the most important metrics of success, Taylor is a tragic failure: she is an ageing, unmarried wench who hath not brought forth a child into this world.

Such is the opinion of John Mac Ghlionn: a man nobody has ever heard of. In a recent op-ed for Newsweek, Ghlionn argued that Swift is a terrible role model for women because “at 34, Swift remains unmarried and childless … While Swift’s musical talent and business acumen are certainly admirable, even laudable, we must ask if her personal life choices are ones we want our sisters and daughters to emulate.”

The opinion of one random man in an obviously rage-bait article published by a dying magazine would not normally be worth wasting oxygen on. However, this extraordinarily misogynistic piece is noteworthy because it reflects the manosphere’s toxic obsession with Swift. Ghlionn’s article came hot on the heels of a tweet by the notorious Andrew Tate blasting Swift for being 34 and unmarried. Tate called Swift “ancient” and asked: “If you’re a girl, why even live past 30 unless you have kids?” There’s nothing insecure men love more than trying to bring successful women down a peg or two.

Swift’s success isn’t the only reason she has rightwing men frothing at the mouth. Her politics also play a role. For a while, you see, the right loved Swift. She is, after all, the very embodiment of heteronormative ideals: a blond-haired, blue-eyed, ultra-feminine white woman who is dating an all-American football player. Andrew Anglin, the writer of the white supremacist blog the Daily Stormer, called Swift a “pure Aryan goddess” at one point, and claimed she was “secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world”.

In 2020, Swift broke a lot of neo-Nazi hearts when she called white supremacy repulsive and endorsed Biden/Harris. The right swiftly turned on their former goddess and she became the object of numerous conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, for example, a poll found that a massive 18% of Americans believe Swift is part of a “covert government effort” to re-elect Joe Biden. The right hate her because she’s successful but also because she has refused to be part of their political agenda.

Ghlionn’s Newsweek op-ed is also worth acknowledging, because it’s part of a phenomenon you could call brand-washing. Once upon a time, Newsweek, which was founded in 1933, was a highly respected magazine. Over the last 15 years, however, it has been devoured by the digital economy and become a shell of itself. Still, that shell – and the fact that many people still think of Newsweek as a vaguely reputable brand – has proved very useful to the far right. In 2022, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a respected civil rights advocacy organization, published an extensive analysis that found that after Newsweek positioned the political activist Josh Hammer to run its opinion pages (he’s now moved on to be a senior editor-at-large), the magazine took a “radical right turn by buoying extremists and promoting authoritarian leaders”. In his personal podcast, the SPLC observe, Hammer has frequently spoken about “[shifting] the Overton window” and pushing far-right views into the mainstream; that, arguably, was also his goal at Newsweek. As the New Republic noted back in 2020, it certainly looks a lot like Newsweek’s “former legitimacy is [being] used to launder extreme and conspiratorial ideas”.

In short: if you’re wondering why a brand like Newsweek would, in the year 2024, publish an op-ed that essentially argues women have no worth without a husband and kids? Well, you need to look at the broader context of what Newsweek’s become.

Chet Hanks condemns the appropriation of ‘white boy summer’ by the far right

In 2021, Tom Hanks’s son joked on Instagram about how it was going to be a “White Boy Summer”. He then tried to capitalize on this viral moment by putting out a terrible song and even worse music video titled White Boy Summer. Three years later, the meme is back because a new report by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has found (surprise, surprise) that the term has been co-opted by racists and extremists. In a statement, Hanks called this “deplorable”.

Prescribing of testosterone for middle-aged women ‘out of control’

A rise of “testosterone evangelists” online means that an increasing number of menopausal women are reaching for the hormone in the hope that it will improve their libido, mood, concentration and general health. However, experts are worried that “testosterone prescribing is completely out of control in the UK”, and users may have long-term health implications.

“[T]he vagina has a higher potential for chemical absorption than skin elsewhere on the body,” a report from Berkeley Public Health explains. Tampons are also “used by a large percentage of the population on a monthly basis – 50-80% of those who menstruate use tampons – for several hours at a time”. Despite all this, very little research has been done into chemicals in tampons. “I really hope that manufacturers are required to test their products for metals, especially for toxic metals,” the lead author, a UC Berkeley researcher, said. “It would be exciting to see the public call for this, or to ask for better labeling on tampons and other menstrual products.” This does seem overdue. It feels unbelievable that there hasn’t been more research into tampons. In fact, until 2023, no study had ever been published that tested period products using human blood.

The Afghan women rebuilding shattered dreams in Iran

More than 40,000 Afghan students, mainly women, are now studying at university in Iran. The country has become a “last resort” for many Afghan women who are no longer able to study in their home country because of the Taliban.

New book reveals Kennedys’ shocking treatment of women

Maureen Callahan’s Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed argues that the famous family should face a reckoning over gender.

Australian senator resigns from ruling Labor party over Gaza

Senator Fatima Payman, whose family fled Afghanistan after the Taliban first took over in 1996, is Australia’s first and only hijab-wearing federal politician. After defying her party’s position and voting for a motion recognizing a Palestinian state, Payman quit Labour but will stay in the upper house as an independent. “Unlike my colleagues, I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of injustice,” Payman explained in a press conference. “My family did not flee a war-torn country to come here as refugees for me to remain silent when I see atrocities inflicted on innocent people.”

The week in pawtriarchy

What with Britain electing a new prime minister and the US counting down the days until November, you might have election coverage fatigue. Treat yourself to a palate cleanser with the Guardian’s hard-hitting coverage of polling place pooches. Paw-litics at its finest.

Some of Rishi Sunak’s closest allies are facing an angry backlash after being awarded honours by the former prime minister, despite their apparent role in the “insane” decision to call an early election.

In a sign of the growing anger within the party ranks over the decision to call the snap poll – as well as alarm over the way it was conducted – the former deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden and chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith were singled out by angry candidates and aides for their role in the “cataclysmic defeat” that several sources claimed had been made worse by the early election decision.

Booth-Smith was handed a peerage in the dissolution honours list, while Dowden was given a knighthood. Both are said to have backed an early election, with Dowden described as particularly influential.

“Somewhere between 1,300 to 1,500 people lost their jobs last night,” said one senior Tory source. “The person who helped decide that this was the right time to do the election, Liam Booth-Smith, was included in the dissolution honours on the same night.” Dowden was also criticised by one figure for backing an election before playing little part in the election campaign itself. Another senior Tory adviser said simply: “Fuck that guy.”

Others defended the pair, stating it was “standard practice” for senior advisers and MPs to be rewarded. However, the blame game has started in earnest after a campaign that was criticised for repeated errors, from Sunak’s rain-soaked election announcement to his decision to leave D-day commemorations early. Insiders painted a picture of a despairing campaign in which the Tory HQ regularly struggled to find ministers to take to the airwaves. “That’s why you saw the same names,” said one party source. “Poor Mel Stride.”

There was an immediate outpouring of anger at the decision to call the election early once the result became clear. It included claims of widespread unease at the decision from across the cabinet, including Esther McVey, David Cameron and Chris Heaton-Harris. One source said the cabinet had been unable to influence the decision “in any way, shape or form”, as it had already been set in train. “There was too narrow a group of people – who don’t know anything about politics – advising the prime minister,” said one senior Tory. “These people have the temerity to think they’re political geniuses.”

While frustration boiled over after the dire result emerged, concerns were raised even in the hours after Sunak called the snap election. Officials warned that hundreds of candidates still had to be picked, while many MPs and their teams had already booked holidays. Plenty of candidates lacked the funds they needed to fight, meaning they were left with no real element of surprise.

“People had just oriented themselves towards November – everybody,” said a senior Tory source. “MPs, special advisers, ministers, campaign teams. Ask a random sample of MPs whether they had £20,000 in their campaign bank account, the answer is no.” In fact, some major donors – even those among the “leader’s club” class who regularly donate tens of thousands a year – did not chip in for the election effort.

“It was madness from the beginning,” said a source familiar with the cabinet discussions on an early election. “The polls had never really narrowed. Then there was a series of unforced errors in the campaign – and we were putting up these gimmicks like national service, which is not really going to attract people whatsoever.”

Another said that the lack of preparation led to the “mass exodus” of senior MPs, leaving the party with the task of finding new candidates, while losing the electoral boost that comes with incumbency. They also pointed to party chairman Richard Holden’s “undignified” decision to install himself into a seat 200 miles away from his abolished constituency as the ultimate example of a party caught on the hop.

Figures close to Sunak, however, remain adamant that they had little choice but to call the early poll, because of the high numbers of households that were having to remortgage each month. They said former prime minister Liz Truss was blamed “pretty much without exception” by householders for their higher costs. Meanwhile, an autumn campaign was seen in Downing Street as likely to hand Nigel Farage an even greater chance to exploit Channel crossings over the summer.

“If we’d have waited, Farage would have stood in Clacton,” said one Sunak ally. “But instead of the focus on Farage happening for five weeks, it would have been for four, five or six months. That’s in a context where you potentially have further boat crossings coming across the Channel. We thought it was best to go early – and I still think it was the best option now.”

Among Sunak’s team, there is fury at pollsters they accuse of overstating Labour’s lead and stopping key Tory messages from landing. Big Labour leads meant that an early “kitchen-sink strategy” of throwing new policies and tax cuts at voters was largely ignored as irrelevant.

“I’m convinced we should ban polls during campaigns,” said one campaign figure. “The reason we had to start talking about a supermajority was because in all our research, people just didn’t believe we were going to win. Three weeks out after the manifesto launch, it became evident and clear that nothing was really working because no one believed it would happen. That was a direct result of there being an MRP [multilevel regression and post-stratification] poll every day. Labour only won by 10 points in the end.”

But several senior Tories – even those who blamed Sunak for the decision to call a snap election – suggested the timing had made little difference to the result. “An insane night … Sunak will be hung out to dry for this,” said one. “But in reality, it’s the entire clown show that’s caught up with us.” Another former minister said the result was “not unexpected”, adding: “In reality this was lost in 2022. The loss of trust and reputation for competence has become ingrained.”

As well as the opprobrium flying around inside the Tory party after its defeat, some of those leaving Downing Street also believe they can sow the seeds of an early recovery – by learning from Keir Starmer. Rather than a major shift to the left or right, one said that just demonstrating “basic competence” could be enough to reassure people about the Tories, given the lack of enthusiasm for Labour.

“Labour is about to hit the same problem we had in 2019 – almost immediately after Brexit was delivered, our electoral coalition was no more. The thing that has brought voters in – getting rid of the Tories – will have been fulfilled immediately. How they maintain that voter base, when MPs are worried about Reform or Gaza, is not clear. We have to just show we’re not divided.

“It probably sounds bizarre and mad because we’ve just suffered a big election loss, but we’re quite optimistic. There is immediate disappointment, but under the surface, there is some optimism for the future. That’s the nature of the volatility we’ve seen.”

As the inquest gathered pace this weekend, it was all already too much for one minister who lost their seat, who was opting to disappear for the time being and not think about politics at all. “There will be lots of takes,” he said. “Almost all wrong.”

Very early on Friday morning, Liz Truss, a politician whose weapons-grade inability to read any room almost bankrupted the nation, appeared unable even to choreograph her own demise. The last minutes of her time in office as an MP were as clumsily inept as much of the previous 14 years of vapid careerism. To begin with, after a brief recount in her South West Norfolk constituency, her fellow candidates were kept waiting on stage for an age while, it appeared, the former PM was outside in a Range Rover with her expensive security detail presumably debating if she might stay behind the tinted glass and avoid the fatal moment for ever.

When she did finally appear through an unexpected side door, following a slow handclap, she stood with characteristic awkwardness to hear the fact that she had somehow, in five catastrophic years – or 49 fatal days – translated a 26,000 Tory majority into a 640-vote defeat. Her victorious Labour opponent, Terry Jermy, gave a heartfelt speech about his win, and the stage seemed set for Truss to offer some kind of response, or explanation, or at least the traditional thank you to tellers and supporters. She looked panicky for half a moment, perhaps with this thought in mind, before scuttling away ungraciously.

Afterwards I asked the velvet-breeched high sheriff who had conducted the announcement if Truss had indicated that she wanted to speak. “No,” he said. “I think she just wasn’t sure which way to get off the stage.”

In an election night overstuffed with Portillo moments – Shapps! Coffey! Mordaunt! Rees-Mogg! – this one provided the final and most fitting sense of closure to some of the least distinguished years in British political history. I happened to be staying for the count in King’s Lynn at a once-grand hotel in which Robert Walpole, the first prime minister and the longest serving, celebrated many electoral triumphs. The tenure of his shortest-serving successor ended in contrastingly banal surroundings, a couple of miles up the road, on the badminton courts of the Lynnsport leisure centre, a venue that might have featured in one of Alan Partridge’s fever dreams.

After successfully locating the exit, Truss gave the BBC her airy take on why she thought the people of Downham Market and Thetford and Swaffham and Methwold had rejected her, ending 60 years of untroubled Conservative victories in the constituency. You might have imagined her argument would be at least prefaced by some reference to the fact her emergency budget had sent the pound crashing to its lowest-ever level and created a £30bn black hole in the economy overnight, casting her as the least popular prime minister in living memory. Instead, of course, she doubled down on the rhetoric that fuelled her risible “comeback” book, Ten Years to Save the West: “The issue we faced as Conservatives was we haven’t delivered sufficiently on the policies people want. That means keeping taxes low, but also … things like the Human Rights Act that made it very difficult for us to deport illegal immigrants.”

It’s interesting to note that not even the Reform candidate in this election, an adult education manager for Norfolk council, Toby McKenzie, cites small-boat immigration as the first issue in his stealing 9,958 votes from Truss here. Instead he suggests that the MP was out of touch on local issues that mattered. “The big thing for me on the doorstep,” he said, “has been the megafarm that is planned near some of the villages here … an absolutely massive site for chickens and pigs. Liz Truss has failed to [campaign to] block it. We are talking thousands upon thousands of animals just a mile away from two villages. Imagine the stench. Pigs are bad enough. But chickens too. She was very much for it,” he said. Before adding, conspiratorially: “And word spreads in Norfolk.”

Truss’s defeat looked like a microcosm of the existential crisis that her party faced in this election and which will define it in the weeks ahead. Her vote was squeezed not only by the populist message of Farage’s party but also by remnants of the remainer centre-right that Truss so shamelessly abandoned after the EU referendum. One nation Tories have been all but purged from the parliamentary party, but there was a well-organised cell of that tradition that took some calculated revenge here.

Local landowner James Bagge (who has the kind of old-school name you hear pronounced three ways), a former army officer and barrister who worked for the serious fraud squad, has led the “turnip Taliban” opposition to Truss ever since she was fast-tracked into her safe seat by David Cameron in 2009. This time around, urged to run by fellow Old Etonian Rory Stewart, Bagge stood as an independent, trimming another 6,282 votes from her total by giving true blue constituents “a trustworthy place to go that wasn’t Labour or Reform”.

He was supported in the most urbane of guerrilla campaigns by those benign ghosts of Conservative past, Dominic Grieve and David Gauke. Bagge is pointedly unrepentant that he effectively helped Labour defeat Truss. He had been, he said, fighting above all for “what has gone [from the frontline party]: honesty, accountability, being genuine. One of the things that has undermined trust so badly is ministers endlessly coming on television and defending indefensible lies. And offering very simplistic solutions to intractable problems”.

Bagge is too polite quite to say so, but he is affronted by the way that Truss refused to attend the only hustings in the constituency, in the town hall at Downham Market, tweeting instead images of herself watching an England match in a local pub. Others have tales of her being hustled by her security out of a local chip shop when things got testy, and last week shouted out of the Whalebone IInn, a Wetherspoons, at breakfast time.

Her apparent inability to recognise that she may be among people whose mortgage payments she had trebled, and whose pensions she has hollowed out, was a source of baffled fascination to all her opponents.

In her campaign literature, without irony, Truss insisted that she was “running on her record in government”. For once, she was taken at her word.

Stormy Daniels’ supporters have raised more than $900,000 meant to help her move to a safe house and repay legal fees after testifying in the criminal trial that led to Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felonies.

The money comes from an online GoFundMe campaign started by a friend and former manager of the adult film actor, who recently appeared on MSNBC and described how supporters of Trump have bombarded her with social media harassment as he seeks a second presidency, including threats to rape and murder her daughter and other family.

“It’s become unsafe for her family and her pets,” the fundraiser’s organizer, Dwayne Crawford, wrote on the page for the campaign, which set a goal of $1m. “Stormy needs help to relocate her family to somewhere they can feel safe and live on their terms.

“She needs assistance to be able to continue to pay the mounting fees so that Trump doesn’t just win because his pocketbook seems endless.”

The so-called I Stand with Stormy Daniels campaign – which had raised more than $940,000 from about 17,600 donors as of Friday – follows her key role in getting Trump convicted in late May on charges of falsifying business records.

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an extramarital sexual encounter that she has alleged to have had with Trump a decade prior to his 2016 presidential election victory. The payment to Daniels was falsely recorded as legal expenses, according to prosecutors, who ultimately won a conviction against Trump in a New York state courthouse with the help of testimony from Daniels.

The US supreme court on Monday held that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution in connection with their actions in office – which should aid Trump substantially as he tries to defeat criminal cases pending against him on charges of improperly retaining classified records and of trying to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden.

One of the more immediate consequences of the supreme court’s ruling was for New York judge Juan Merchan to delay Trump’s sentencing in the case that ensnared Daniels. It had originally been scheduled for 11 July, but Merchan tentatively reset the proceeding for 18 September after the former president’s legal team asked him to delay it in light of the immunity decision.

Meanwhile, Daniels told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday that she had been inundated with Facebook messages threatening “to rape everybody in my family, including my young daughter, before they killed them”.

“I’ve lost … mostly my peace, mostly my daughter’s privacy, and time – time I’ll never get back with her,” Daniels said in reference to her participation in the prosecution against Trump.

She also detailed how she owed $500,000 in attorneys’ fees – which she could not afford to pay – over a civil defamation lawsuit that she filed against Trump in 2018.

Among those who expressed support for Daniels after her interview with Maddow was writer E Jean Carroll, who sued Trump over allegations of rape and defamation – and won nearly $90m in civil penalties from him. “I’d be happy to help!!” she wrote on X on Tuesday night.

But one of the voices to come out against Daniels was her former attorney Michael Avenatti, who remained imprisoned for defrauding her and other clients.

In a Wednesday post on X, he dismissed Daniels’ fundraising campaign as “GoFundMe grift” and “complete bullshit”, arguing that the alleged threats were not coming from Trump personally. Avenatti’s comments brought him his own detractors, with some X users accusing him of angling for a pardon from Trump in case he wins a return to the White House in November.

Crawford, the Daniels fundraiser organizer, wrote that he had been motivated to get involved after he and his friends were given “front-row seats to the parts of this story that don’t fit neatly into click-bait headlines”.

“If we allow Stormy, after choosing to stand up to the president of these United States, to lose her life, her liberty or her happiness, then we have failed at the very foundational core of what this nation was built upon,” Crawford added.

Joe Biden is pushing back against questions about whether he has the mental and physical stamina to serve another term is president, arguing, in a much-hyped Friday television interview, “I just had a bad night.”

In a pre-taped sit-down interview that aired on Friday evening, the 81-year-old president told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he had been sick, exhausted, and had not prepared well for last week’s presidential debate with Donald Trump.

Biden’s performance was so poor that some Democrats, including Democratic members of Congress, are calling him to drop out of the race. But so far he has vowed to stay in the race.

Here are some key takeaways:

Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s runoff presidential election, beating hardliner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the west and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.

A vote count offered by authorities on Saturday morning put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million after Friday’s voting.

Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew and victory became apparent over Jalili – a former nuclear negotiator close to Iran’s supreme leader.

Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shia theocracy in his campaign and long has held the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the final arbiter of all matters of state. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hardliners.

The first round of voting on 28 June saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shia theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.

Government officials up to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted a higher participation rate as voting got under way, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centres.

However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security presence on the streets.

More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6pm but was extended until midnight to boost participation.

The late president, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protege of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader. While Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy towards either confrontation or collaboration with the west.

Many knew Raisi for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

In April, Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israel, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region – such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.

Iran is enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so.

The campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if Donald Trump won the November election in the US. Trump withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Iran has held indirect talks with Joe Biden’s administration, although there has been no clear movement back towards constraining Tehran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.

With Associated Press

Donald Trump is trying to claim he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025, a political roadmap created by people close to him for his potential second term.

The project, which is led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, seeks to crack down on various issues including immigration, reproductive rights, environmental protections and LGBTQ+ rights. It also aims to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists across the government.

Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

The former president’s post came a day after the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, said the US was in the midst of a “second American revolution” that can be bloodless “if the left allows it to be”. He made the comments on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back”.

In response to Trump’s post, several critics were quick to point out that it appears unlikely that he is unaware of Project 2025, given that many individuals involved in the project are his closest allies.

“Many people involved in Project 2025 are close to Trump world & have served in his previous admin,” CNN’s Alayna Treene said.

Economist and Guardian columnist Robert Reich wrote: “Don’t be fooled. The playbook is written by more than 20 officials Trump appointed in his first term. It is the clearest vision we have of a 2nd Trump presidency.”

The Trump campaign has previously pushed back on claims that he would follow the policy ideas set out in Project 2025 or by other conservative groups. His campaign told Axios in November 2023 that the campaign’s own policy agenda, called Agenda47, is “the only official comprehensive and detailed look at what President Trump will do when he returns to the White House”, though the campaign added that it was “appreciative” of suggestions from others.

Still, Heritage claimed credit for a bevy of Trump policy proposals in his first term, based on the group’s 2017 version of the Mandate for Leadership. The group calculated that 64% of its policy recommendations were implemented or proposed by Trump in some way during his first year in office.

The Heritage Foundation also created the first Mandate for Leadership that heavily influenced Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1981.

The foundation claims that Reagan gave copies of the manifesto to “every member of his Cabinet” and that nearly two-thirds of the policy recommendations it laid out were either “adopted or attempted” by Reagan.

A fast-moving wildfire burning near Yosemite national park is threatening rural communities as millions of people in California and across the US west swelter under a brutal heatwave that is predicted to persist through the weekend.

The French fire broke out on Thursday and grew to more than 900 acres (364 hectares) by Friday afternoon. The fire is 15% contained with “multiple evacuations and road closures in place”, according to local fire officials.

Footage posted on social media showed flames and smoke billowing on Thursday night over the Gold-Rush era town of Mariposa, a community in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 40 miles outside the national park. The area is under an excessive heat alert with temperatures due to top 100F (38C) on Friday.

Bulldozers and crews built a line across the entire eastern side of Mariposa and are making progress in bringing the fire under control.

“Winds have calmed which has helped firefighters make progress overnight,” according to a status report from Cal Fire, the state’s wildfire agency.

The fire is one of more than a dozen burning across the state, including several that broke out on the Fourth of July. Further north, firefighters were gaining ground against the Thompson fire near the city of Oroville in Butte County, which has burned more than 3,700 acres and prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people.

On Friday, containment of the Thompson fire had increased to 29% and evacuated residents were allowed to return home as crews continue to battle the flames in scorching heat. Officials have warned of hot temperatures in the area that could hit 108F, with even hotter weather expected into the weekend.

California has faced a number of spring and early summer wildfires, thanks to a wet winter that left landscapes coated in grasses that were primed to burn as the summer heated up.

The excessive heat will only dry out the landscapes further, adding to the threat of an active wildfire season in the months ahead. Officials had feared that fireworks and other Fourth of July celebrations would add to the risks.

“The combination of events has presented a huge challenge for firefighters. It is so incredibly dry out there,” said Ed Fletcher, a public information officer with Cal Fire, this week.

Meanwhile, residents across the US west are dealing with stifling temperatures. About 108 million Americans will spend the remainder of the weekend under excessive heat advisories, with record-breaking temperatures forecast for many spots in California, southern Oregon and the south-west, the National Weather Service said.

“Numerous record-breaking temperatures can be expected through the next few days,” according to a NWS briefing. The west coast will hover 15 to 30F above average, with many towns and cities reaching close to 110F (43C) or above on Friday.

“Expect only subtle changes to our daily high temperatures through the weekend,” the National Weather Service in Flagstaff, Arizona, said on X.

“Where did you go, monsoon? Hurry back,” it said, referring to a recent bout of torrential rain in the area, which is usually bone-dry this time of year.

Some of the hottest spots will include Phoenix, where it is expected to be 115F (46C), and Palm Springs, California, where it will reach 119F (48C). Las Vegas is expected to hit 118F on Monday, potentially breaking an all-time record.

Elsewhere, ferocious heat will also prevail from Mississippi to Florida, and north along the east coast to Pennsylvania, where temperatures will exceed 100F (38C).

The National Weather Service warned that hot overnight conditions across the Mississippi Valley could lead to “a dangerous situation for those without access to adequate cooling”.

More on extreme heat and wildfires in the US

Robert F Kennedy Jr has made a startling pledge to not “take sides” with respect to the September 11 terrorist attacks if his long-shot presidential campaign vaults him to the White House.

“My take on 9/11: It’s hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t. But conspiracy theories flourish when the government routinely lies to the public,” Kennedy wrote on Friday in a post on X in reference to the deadliest terrorist attack ever aimed at the US. “As president I won’t take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates.

“But I can promise … that I will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency.”

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001 after terrorists hijacked and crashed passenger planes into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington DC and a field in Pennsylvania.

Kennedy’s decision to revisit one of the most traumatic subjects in American history came just three days after the noted conspiracy theorist responded to an allegation that he sexually assaulted a babysitter previously in his employ by saying: “I’m not a church boy” and “I am who I am.”

That allegation – reported in Vanity Fair – came amid growing scrutiny of his independent run for president, which has fueled worries among Democrats and Republicans that he could decide November’s election by pulling votes away from Joe Biden, Donald Trump or both in key states.

Friday’s statement on X was not the first time Kennedy had expressed dubiousness about the US’s official account of 9/11. In a podcast interview in September, he refused to say al-Qaida carried out the attacks – as the terrorist organization acknowledged and investigators determined long ago.

Kennedy wrote on Friday that he was prompted to speak out by a recent report from the CBS news program 60 Minutes which chronicled how a man identified by the FBI as a Saudi intelligence agent filmed locations in the center of Washington just three months before 9/11.

A court action from family members of September 11 victims, who contend that the Saudi government was complicit in the terrorist attacks, brought the footage to light. Saudi rulers deny the victims’ families’ claims.

For his part, Kennedy on Friday described himself as “agnostic” concerning 9/11, so-called UFOs “and other contentious topics”.

“My issue is transparency,” Kennedy added in a related follow-up post on X.

Kennedy is polling at less than 10% of the national vote and is highly unlikely to win the presidency, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average.

His relation to his father, Robert F Kennedy – the New York senator who was assassinated in 1968 – and uncle John F Kennedy, who was president at the time of his 1963 assassination, has afforded his campaign attention. So has his marriage to actor and comedian Cheryl Hines.

In addition to his 9/11 skepticism, peddling falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccine safety has seemingly undermined Kennedy’s effort to attract wider support. And so have outlandish claims such as linking antidepressants to school shootings and asserting that certain chemicals in water make children transgender.

The 27 June presidential debate – marked by a calamitous Biden performance that left his party in a panic as well as Trump’s rapid-fire delivery of lies and half-truths – did little to improve Kennedy’s standing.

A recent HarrisX/Forbes poll found a paltry 18% of voters were more likely to vote for a third-party candidate after the debate.

“Whatever shaking of the box happened with the debate, these voters aren’t really yet thinking about RFK Jr or any of the third-party candidates,” HarrisX chief executive officer Dritan Nesho later said. “None of the tickets are prominent enough at this stage to be able to capture a good share of vote – at least that’s what we’re seeing in polls right now.”

Germany’s second summer fairy tale is over but Spain’s goes on, Stuttgart stunned at the last. With 65 seconds of extra time remaining, penalties looking inevitable and players ­pulling up all over the pitch, barely able to walk, Dani Olmo clipped in a ­glorious ball and there, deep in the penalty area, was Mikel Merino. A turn of the head, a twist of the neck and the selección were on their way to the semi-final, on the verge of finally defeating a tournament host at the tenth attempt.

On their way, which is not to say they were there just yet. Still they had to survive a scare – how could it be otherwise after an evening such as this, lived on the edge? – when Niclas Füllkrug headed past a post a ­minute into added time. And there was another one, four minutes beyond the 120, when with the very last kick of the game, the very last kick of Toni Kroos’s entire career, they faced one final delivery into their box. Manuel Neuer was up for that. So though was Unai Simón, clutching the ball and Spain’s place in the next round.

What an exhausting, bruising evening it had been, a game of 41 shots and 16 yellow cards, a red too right at the end when Dani Carvajal, as desperate as they all were, hauled down Jamal Musiala to set up what might have been a dramatic twist on the dramatic twist. It could have belonged to either of them. In the end, though, it belonged to Spain, who had resisted a modern Germany and the old Germany too.

They will have to count their men back in but there will be time to ­consider that, to work out how it had happened. For now what mattered was that they had made it. The hosts will ask the same question, from the other side. How? Twice they hit the post and there could been a late ­penalty too as inside this roaring, tense place, the feeling grew that this was one of those moments that mean you never write off the Germans. Behind early in the second half, they had pushed until they drew level on 89; with Spain either forced back, or taking refuge, they had seemed the more likely to win a wild, open game.

This had been presented as the best teams at the tournament ­taking a look in the mirror. Luis de la Fuente insisted on their similarities and so too had Julian Nagelsmann: two sides good in possession and ­transition, employing a high press and the ­counter-press; what awaited, ­Nagelsmann said, was a match “as interesting as everyone thinks.” What awaited, it turned out, was a bit of a battle too.

In the opening three minutes, while the smell of sulphur still ­lingered, Emre Can, Marc Cucurella and Pedri all went down. The first of those led to the first chance: by ­seeking the foul, Can allowed Spain to advance, Fabián Ruiz, Nico ­Williams and Álvaro Morata setting up a ­shooting position for Pedri. The last led to an early departure: Kroos sent Pedri flying, leaving the Spain midfielder limping off in tears.

Kroos had been fortunate to escape a booking then and a few ­minutes later he trod on Lamine Yamal, a glimpse of the intensity that ­Nagelsmann hinted at – even if the coach had quickly added that his team were not planning to kick Lamine Yamal “out of his socks”. On the touchline, De la Fuente was in the ear of the fourth official. On the pitch, the players were quick into each other, Antonio Rüdiger next into Olmo as he dashed through.

This was a game of moments, ­frantic, spaces only occasionally opening, chances hurried. Kroos could not control, Can lost the ball. In the chaos Rodri remained calm and Ruiz would emerge too. ­Williams could not be contained, but nor could he be decisive yet. Spain were quick to shoot, sometimes too quick. ­Germany worked a couple of chances for Kai Havertz: a header that Simón saved and then a scuffed shot from the edge of the area.

Spain almost led when Lamine Yamal found Morata who spun and struck over, and then did when the 16-year-old was next involved. Again, the fear could be felt, David Raum reluctant to be drawn too close. And so, Lamine Yamal slowed and set up Olmo, cool as you like. Arriving from deeper, the timing of the run as ­perfect as Lamine Yamal’s pass, Olmo swept past Neuer.

Füllkrug came on, gesturing to the fans. The noise rose, the style shifted. Florian Wirtz bent past the post. Spain were under pressure, the changes De la Fuente made speaking of resistance. ­Füllkrug was the target, a gravitational pull of his own. He set up Robert Andrich for a shot that Simón saved superbly and Havertz for another that Carvajal dived to block, then headed wide. When Wirtz escaped and crossed, he turned a shot against the post.

Simón then gifted an ­opportunity to Havertz who curled over him towards the open goal but over. Still, though, they came. This is ­Germany. A moment’s calm from Kroos, a superb cross from Max Mittelstädt and Joshua Kimmich’s header set up Wirtz with a minute to go and he struck in off the post to take them to extra time. There, Germany carried the weight of the game. The pitch felt huge, but so too was the effort to traverse it.

Mikel Oyarzabal flashed wide and Thomas Müller set up Wirtz but his shot spun past the post. Musiala’s goalbound shot was stopped by Cucurella’s hand, Füllkrug hit wide, and so did Oyarzabal, then Simon brilliantly saved Füllkrug’s diving header. And then came Merino’s moment, history made.