Hearing for suspect in White House correspondents’ dinner shooting scheduled for today – US politics live

Cole Allen remains in custody after being charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

The suspect from the 25 April shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has a hearing covering the conditions of his confinement scheduled for later today.

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, has been hospitalised and is in a “critical but stable condition”, his spokesperson said on Sunday evening. Ted Goodman, the spokesperson, posted on social media: “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit its worst level during his two terms in office, with more than six in 10 Americans disapproving of the president’s job performance. Trump’s rating is at its worst on the cost of living and other economic issues since launching his deeply unpopular war against Iran in February, which has plunged the global economy into an oil crisis and sent gas prices rocketing to a four-year high.

Trump has announced that the US will “guide” ships trapped by the Iran war out of the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz on Monday morning, and claimed his representatives were having “very positive” discussions with Iran. Trump wrote on his social media site that the operation, called “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is to travel to Rome this week for a visit reportedly aimed at thawing frosty relations with the Italian government and the Vatican. Rubio is scheduled to be in the Italian capital on Thursday and Friday, which will also mark the one-year anniversary of the papacy of Pope Leo, the first US-born pontiff.

Pete Hegseth’s purges of senior officers with impeccable reputations have caused alarm at the Pentagon, raising questions about whether a supposed last line of defense against the impulsive whims of a president with access to the nuclear codes still exists.

Trump is attempting to select his own citizenry and control who can vote by gathering the personal details of all Americans, Arizona’s top election official has warned. Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, fears that the Trump administration’s active efforts to forcibly extract voter files from 30 states including Fontes’s own are part of a bigger plan to gather vital information on all US citizens into a centralised database.

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