Tom Kean, who has not voted since 5 March and whose seat is top Democratic target, due back ‘very soon’, speaker says

A vulnerable Republican congressman who has not voted in weeks “is attending to a personal health matter”, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said on Friday as he struggles to maintain his historically small majority in Congress’s lower chamber.

Tom Kean Jr’s New Jersey district is a top pickup target for Democrats in the November midterms, but the congressman has not cast a vote in the House since 5 March.

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© Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

The Social Security Trust Fund is projected to run out in 2032 due to income inequality and a cap on taxable earnings, but this can be avoided by removing the cap and taxing higher incomes.

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When Pete Hegseth was asked about Pope Leo XIV’s condemnation of the war in Iran, and comments from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops suggesting the conflict is not a “just war”, the defense secretary simply said that the pope was “going to do his thing”.

“We know what our mission is,” Hegseth added. “We follow that the orders of the president. We’ve got lawyers all over the place looking at what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and giving us every authority necessary under the constitution and under our laws to execute it.”

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© Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA

© Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA

© Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA

The party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been making gains in a state once beyond its grasp, but many decry an audit that removed nine million voters, many of them Muslim.