Californians head to the polls as governor primary goes down to the wire – US politics live

Other races also taking place in state as well as primaries in New Jersey, South Dakota, New Mexico, Iowa and Montana

• Sign up to the Breaking News US email

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Californians go to the polls today in the first round of voting for a new governor, with a tight three-way race for two run-off spots.

Democrats in the US Senate vowed to force Republicans to vote on a $1.8bn “Maga slush fund” established as part of a resolution of Donald Trump’s long-shot lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. The US president has described the secretive and loosely controlled “anti-weaponization fund” as a means of paying the victims of politicized prosecutions.

Tina Peters, the former clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to chase election conspiracy theories promulgated by Donald Trump, was released from prison on Monday after the president successfully pressured Colorado’s Democratic governor into commuting her sentence.

On Monday afternoon, over an hour south of Newark, a few dozen protesters outside the New Jersey state legislature in Trenton condemned Democratic governor Mikie Sherrill’s decision to send in the state police to Delaney Hall, the Newark immigration detention center that has seen more than a week of chaotic and often violent clashes.

Transgender troops can remain in the US military, but the armed services can continue to block their enlistment, an appeals court ruled on Monday in a split decision with potentially significant consequences for the Trump administration’s anti-diversity agenda.

Continue reading...