This isn’t the first time Cory Mills has faced allegations of misconduct – but the House speaker wants to talk about ‘serious’ things

Meet Cory Mills, a Republican congressman representing Florida. He is rabidly anti-abortion, incredibly anti-immigration, and obsequiously pro-Trump. Earlier this year, perhaps in a desperate bid to get Dear Leader to notice him, he introduced a bill, dubbed the “DON-ument Act”, which would make the wall on the US-Mexico border a national monument.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

And is it actually possible for your body clock to change? Am I really turning into an early bird or have I just been forced into a child-dictated schedule?

We all know that early birds get the worm. But who wants a worm? Not me. For most of my life I have identified as a night owl, clambering out of bed as late as possible and not so much seizing but reluctantly easing into the day.

US work culture is not really optimal for night owls. Rather, it favours CEOs who get up at 4am and run a marathon while the rest of us hit the snooze button. Still, I always consoled myself with the idea that night owls are actually more intelligent and creative than their early bird counterparts. Franz Kafka and Thomas Wolfe wrote at bedtime; Bob Dylan recorded at night. Even scientific studies indicated it was true.

I am not celebrating the end of the ‘war’ because this was not a war – and it’s not over, either

Thank you, Donald Trump. Thank you, Benjamin Netanyahu. Thank you, Jared Kushner. Let’s all pause, shall we, and have a moment of appreciation for these three wise men who have finally brought peace to the Middle East. Blessed are the peacemakers!

And, of course, thank you to the Israeli military which, as a US taxpayer, I have done my part to help fund. To echo Kushner: “Instead of replicating the barbarism of the enemy, [Israel] chose to be exceptional.”

Science tells us that foetuses develop in the uterus, rather than the placenta – but the US health secretary has a different take. Why are Republicans so clueless about women’s bodies?

Robert F Kennedy Jr is the father of six children. He’s also the US health secretary. Two facts that might lead a reasonable person to assume he possesses a basic understanding of how foetuses develop.

In a shocking development, however, it seems that Kennedy – an anti-vaxxer who says his brain was partly eaten by a parasitic worm – may not know what he’s talking about. During a cabinet meeting last Thursday, Kennedy reasserted unproven claims that taking the common painkiller acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol or paracetamol, while pregnant causes autism. Doubters of this theory, he said, were motivated by Trump derangement syndrome. To underscore his point, he referenced a TikTok video he’d seen of a pregnant woman “gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Speculating on basketball players’ menstrual cycles is creepy and intrusive. In other words, it’s just what you’d expect when women must be punished for standing out

Forget the bald eagle or the Statue of Liberty – the best symbol of modern America may well be a neon green dildo. Women’s basketball fans will know exactly what I’m talking about. On 29 July, a brightly coloured sex toy was thrown on to the court during the final minutes of play in a WNBA game between the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream. In the weeks that followed, more neon dildos were flung at female basketball players, with at least six WNBA games disrupted.

The culprits were reportedly members of a cryptocurrency group trying to boost a memecoin called Green Dildo Coin. It was all very 2025: brainrot stunts, get-rich-quick schemes and memeified misogyny. And, of course, the Trump family joined in. Donald Trump Jr, who fancies himself an edgelord, posted a crude meme of his dad throwing a green dildo on to a court of young, female basketball players.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.