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    Trump lambasts Republicans pursuing what he calls the ‘Epstein hoax’ as ‘stupid people’ – live updates

    The president then was asked what evidence he might have seen to change his stance on the Epstein case, which this morning he called a “hoax”.Trump doubled down on his claim that it’s a “big hoax,” but did not provide evidence to support this claim. He also claimed the Epstein case was “started by the Democrats,” but again cited no evidence (though he did mention the Steele Dossier, a report on Trump’s 2016 campaign that alleged cooperation with Russia?).“Some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net and try to do the Democrats’s work,” Trump said.“They’re stupid people,” he continued to say about Republicans who believe there is more to be revealed about the Epstein case.A federal judge in Tennessee said on Wednesday that he would not rule this week on the legal status of Kilmar Ábrego, the migrant returned to the US after being wrongly deported to El Salvador, according to Adam Klasfeld, a legal reporter who was in the Nashville courtroom.Federal prosecutors sought to convince US district judge Waverly Crenshaw to reverse a magistrate judge’s ruling allowing Ábrego – who faces human smuggling charges that were only developed after his wrongful deportation to a Salvadorian prison became a source of embarrassment for the Trump administration – to be released on bail to await a trial.The Trump administration claimed Ábrego was in the MS-13 gang, although he was not charged with being a member and has repeatedly denied the allegation. Facing mounting pressure and a US supreme court order, the administration returned Ábrego to the US last month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous”.A department of homeland security investigator, Peter Joseph, testified about the investigation on Wednesday, detailing information authorities learned from alleged co-conspirators with Ábrego in a migrant smuggling ring.Ábrego’s lawyers have suggested that the testimony of his alleged co-conspirators is unreliable, since all of them have either criminal or immigration cases of their own, with their deportations being deferred in exchange for their cooperation with the government.Even if the judge in orders him released from criminal custody, the Trump administration has said Ábrego will immediately be detained by immigration authorities and face a second deportation.Ábrego’s lawyers have asked US district judge Paula Xinis in Maryland to order the government to send him to Maryland if he is released in Tennessee, a request that aims to prevent his expulsion before trial.Donald Trump, who reportedly consumes a dozen Diet Cokes every day, just announced that he has convinced Coca-Cola to return to using sugar in its drinks.“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so”, Trump posted on his social media network. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”Coca-Cola currently sweetens its drinks with high-fructose corn syrup, in large part because a previous Republican president, Ronald Reagan, imposed tariffs on imported sugar in 1981, dramatically raising prices.Those tariffs and quotas had the effect of incentivizing domestic corn syrup production and consumption in the United States. Trump’s initiative could have the unintended effect of lowering the demand for corn, the domestic production of which is heavily subsidized by the federal government.If enough Americans agree with the president that Coca-Cola sweetened with sugar is better tasting, that could also cut against the efforts of his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to make Americans healthier by getting them to consume less sweet, carbonated beverages.Kennedy has supported efforts to prevent Americans from spending food-aid benefits on sugary, carbonated beverages.High-fructose corn syrup isn’t necessarily worse for us than table sugar, Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2012, but it is also healthier to avoid both.Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology, told the daly that the two sweeteners are chemically quite similar. High-fructose corn syrup, made from corn, is about 55% fructose and 40% glucose. Table sugar, or sucrose, is made from sugar cane or beets and is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. While high-fructose corn syrup often gets blamed for the nation’s obesity epidemic, Hu said, “we should worry about sugar in general”.In 2020, the NBC News affiliate in Seattle spoke to experts who confirmed that Coca-Cola made in Mexico, where it is sweetened with sugar, is not healthier than Coca-Cola produced with corn syrup.In keeping with the frantic pace of posting maintained by their boss, Donald Trump, the White House press office has a hyperactive social media feed on X, @RapidResponse47, that is very frequently updated with clips of the president’s statements, hour after hour.The account has posted 49 times already on Wednesday, and featured seven video clips of Trump’s comments on a range of issues during his meeting with Bahrain’s prime minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. But the aides who run the account seem to be studiously avoiding one subject: Trump’s claim that the uproar over his administration’s decision not to release files from the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he knew well, is ‘a hoax’.None of what Trump said about Epstein on Wednesday appeared on this official White House feed. Similarly, when Trump spoke to reporters on Tuesday, the account clipped and boosted his remarks on several other subjects, but ignored his claim that the subject of Epstein’s crimes was “sordid, but boring”.That marks a change from February, when the president’s press team shared a clip of Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, telling Fox host Jesse Watters, that she had the Epstein files on her desk. With a siren emoji, the account showed video of Bondi saying: “I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now, you’re going to see some Epstein information being released by my office”.“What’s you’re going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information”, Bondi added. That information however has still not been released.Donald Trump has said that he thinks China will begin sentencing people to death for fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.Speaking at an event for the signing of the Halt Fentanyl Act, attended by family members of people who had died from overdoes, Trump said he imposed a tariff on China “because of fentanyl”.“I think we’re going to work it out so that China is going to end up going from that to giving the death penalty to the people that create this fentanyl and send it into our country,” Trump said. “I believe that’s going to happen soon.”Columbia University has agreed to adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism as it pursues an agreement with the administration aimed at restoring $400m in federal government grants frozen over its alleged failure to protect Jewish students.In a letter to students and staff, the university’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said it would incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism into its anti-discrimination policies as part of a broad overhaul.It is the latest in a string of concessions Columbia has made following criticisms – mainly from pro-Israel groups and Republican members of Congress – that university authorities had tolerated the expression of antisemitic attitudes in pro-Palestinian campus protests following the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2023.“Columbia is committed to taking all possible steps to combat antisemitism and the University remains dedicated to ensuring that complaints of discrimination and harassment of all types, including complaints based on Jewish and Israeli identity, are treated in the same manner,” wrote Shipman.“Formally adding the consideration of the IHRA definition into our existing anti-discrimination policies strengthens our approach to combating antisemitism.”The definition, which describes antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”, has been adopted by the US state department and several European government and EU groups.However, critics have say it is designed to shield Israel by punishing legitimate criticism of the country. They also complain that it conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism.Among the examples of criticisms accompanying the definition are “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”, “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nations” and “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel … than to the interests of their own nations”.Vice-president JD Vance earlier made the administration’s first big pitch to sell the public on Donald Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania.Vance, whose tie-breaking vote got the bill through the Senate, touted the legislation’s tax breaks and cast Democrats as opponents of the cutting taxes because of their unanimous opposition to the legislation.Democrats, who’ve decried the bill’s deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, along with other provisions, are expected to try to use it against Republicans in closely contested congressional campaigns next year that will determine control of Congress.The GOP plans to use it to make their case as well, something the vice-president asked the crowd in working-class West Pittston to help with.“Go and talk to your neighbors, go and talk to your friends, about what this bill does for America’s citizens. Because we don’t want to wake up in a year and a half and give the Democrats power back,” he said.Speaking at at an industrial machine shop, the Vance was also quick to highlight the bill’s new tax deductions on overtime.“You earned that money,” Vance said. “You ought to keep it in your pocket.”He also promoted the legislation’s creation of a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the treasury department.Recognizing the significance of the coal and gas industry in Pennsylvania, he also talked up the ways the law seeks to promote energy extraction, such as allowing increased leasing for drilling, mining and logging on public lands, speeding up government approvals and cutting royalty rates paid by extraction companies.“We are finally going to drill, baby drill and invest in American energy,” Vance said. “And I know you all love that.”The historic legislation, which Trump signed into law earlier this month with near unanimous Republican support, includes key campaign pledges like no tax on tips but also cuts Medicaid and food stamps by a staggering $1.2tn.Democrats recently held a town hall in House speaker Mike Johnson’s home state of Louisiana to denounce the legislation as a “reverse Robin Hood — stealing from the poor to give to the rich”.Vance’s office declined to elaborate to the Associated Press on plans for other public events around the US to promote the bill. After his remarks, he visited a nearby diner where he picked up food and spoke to some of the patrons.Here’s my colleague Oliver Holmes’s report on Trump lashing out against his own supporters for questioning the transparency of a secretive government inquiry into the late high-profile socialite and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein:

    Donald Trump backed away from suggestions he was moving to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, following media reports that he had privately indicated to a meeting of GOP lawmakers last night that he would do so. After the bombshell reports rocked Wall Street this morning, the president pulled back, saying it was “highly unlikely” that he’ll fire Powell. “We’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters, unless Powell “has to leave” because of “fraud”, referring to the controversy over renovations to the Fed’s historic headquarters in Washington.

    Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on X: “Nobody is fooled by President Trump and Republicans’ sudden interest in building renovations — it’s clear pretext to fire Fed Chair Powell.” Trump indicated that he’d probably wait to replace Powell until his term ends next year. The president does not have the power to fire the Fed chair without cause.

    It has failed to distract from the growing furore from Trump’s usually ardently loyal Maga base over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. His base is in uproar over the justice department’s recent decision to halt further disclosures related to Epstein, including the alleged client list, as well as its finding that he died by suicide. That reached new altitudes today when Trump branded the case a hoax and lashed out at his supporters-turned-critics, calling them “weaklings” and “stupid people” for buying into the conspiracy theories, which he blamed on (checks notes) Democrats. He is conveniently forgetting that both he himself and members of his administration have long stoked those same theories. He is also conveniently not acknowledging that prominent allies of his have joined the calls for the files to be released, including House speaker Mike Johnson, and influential Maga figures like far-right activist Laura Loomer.

    Trump also once again back Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case and said: “Whatever’s credible she can release. If a document’s there that is credible, she can release [it], I think it’s good.”

    Secretary of state Marco Rubio, asked about Israeli strikes on Syria on Wednesday, said the United States was “very concerned”, adding that he had just spoken to the relevant parties over the phone. “We’re going to be working on that issue as we speak. I just got off the phone with the relevant parties. We’re very concerned about it, and hopefully we’ll have some updates later today. But we’re very concerned about it,” Rubio said. He added that the US wants fighting to stop as clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters broke out hours after a ceasefire agreement.

    Zohran Mamdani told New York business leaders yesterday he will not use the phrase “globalize the intifada” and discourage others from doing so. The mayoral frontrunner explained at the meeting that many use “globalize the intifada” as an expression of support for the Palestinian people and, for him, the phrase means protest against the Israeli occupation of Gaza, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mamdani also said he is willing to discourage the specific language, but not the idea behind it.

    A flight carrying immigrants deported from the US landed in Eswatini, the homeland security department announced, in a move that follows the supreme court lifting limits on deporting migrants to third countries.

    A group of 20 mostly Democrat-led US states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from terminating a multibillion-dollar grant program that funds infrastructure upgrades to protect against natural disasters.

    Robert F Kennedy Jr abruptly fired two of his top aides – chief of staff Heather Flick Melanson and deputy chief of staff for policy Hannah Anderson – CNN reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
    “Many Republicans I’ve been talking to over the past few days have predicted that Trump would do something dramatic to distract from Epstein,” a Puck reporter wrote on X regarding today’s will he, won’t regarding sacking Jerome Powell.And as Politico notes, “though Trump appears to be holding off on Powell, a groundswell of backlash from both base and swing voters – over the Epstein files and the GOP megabill – continues to dominate headlines”.House speaker Mike Johnson has said he believes it would be beneficial to have new leadership at the Federal Reserve, although he added that he’s not sure the president has the authority to fire chair Jerome Powell, according to media reports.“I do I believe new leadership would be helpful at the Fed,” a Wall Street Journal reporter on X has quoted Johnson as saying.Punchbowl News, in a separate X post, reported Johnson said he’s “really not sure” if the president can fire Powell.US senator Elizabeth Warren has said that Donald Trump’s interest in renovations of Federal Reserve’s headquarters is “clear pretext” to fire chairman Jerome Powell.Last week, the White House intensified its criticism of how the Fed is being run when the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, sent Powell a letter saying Trump was “extremely troubled” by cost overruns in the $2.5bn renovation of its historic headquarters in Washington.Earlier today, following bombshell news reports that Trump was planning to fire Powell which rattled financial markets, the president pulled back in the Oval Office. Though he confirmed that the conversation with GOP lawmakers about whether he should fire the central bank leader took place, the president said it’s “highly unlikely” that he’ll fire Powell.“We’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters, unless Powell “has to leave” because of “fraud”, referring to the controversy over the renovations. The president indicated that he’d probably wait to replace Powell until his term ends next year.“Nobody is fooled by President Trump and Republicans’ sudden interest in building renovations — it’s clear pretext to fire Fed Chair Powell,” Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate banking committee, which oversees the Fed, said in a post on X.As we’ve fact-checked, the president doesn’t have the power to fire Powell over a monetary dispute and today he backed away from the idea, saying instead that “we get to make a change in eight months” (when Powell’s tenure expires).US senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has said that firing the Federal Reserve chair because “political people” don’t agree with his economic decision-making would undermine US credibility, adding that it would be a “huge mistake” to end the Fed’s independence.“You’re going to see a pretty immediate response and we’ve got to avoid that,” Tillis, a Republican member of the Senate banking committee, said on the floor of the chamber earlier.Trump has today backed away from the idea of firing Jerome Powell, saying instead that “we get to make a change in eight months” (when Powell’s tenure expires).The president does not have the power to fire the Federal Reserve chair. But reports today said that Trump had asked Republican lawmakers if he should fire Powell, and several people in the room indicated he will do it.Well, that more or less captures everything Donald Trump said in the oval office just now alongside Bahrain crown prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.Trump again supported his attorney general, Pam Bondi, who has been under fire for her handling of the Epstein case.“I think she’s doing a great job.”The president was asked whether he would allow US attorney general Pam Bondi to release more information on the Jeffrey Epstein case.“Whatever’s credible she can release,” Trump said. “If a document’s there that is credible, she can release [it], I think it’s good.”But then he goes after Republicans again: “All it is is that certain Republicans got duped by the Democrats and they’re following the Democrat playbook. It’s no different than ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ and all the other hoaxes.”Trump tries to pivot to the Biden-autopen investigation that Republicans are leading against his predecessor. It has been widely seen as a partisan move to discredit the former Democratic president.“That’s the scandal they should be talking about, not Jeffrey Epstein,” he said. “I think it’s the biggest scandal – one of them – in American history.” More

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    Columbia adopts controversial definition of antisemitism amid federal grants freeze

    Columbia University has agreed to adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism as it pursues an agreement with the Trump aimed at restoring $400m in federal government grants frozen over its alleged failure to protect Jewish students.In a letter to students and staff, the university’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said it would incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism into its anti-discrimination policies as part of a broad overhaul.It is the latest in a string of concessions Columbia has made following criticisms – mainly from pro-Israel groups and Republican members of Congress – that university authorities had tolerated the expression of antisemitic attitudes in pro-Palestinian campus protests following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in 2023.“Columbia is committed to taking all possible steps to combat antisemitism and the University remains dedicated to ensuring that complaints of discrimination and harassment of all types, including complaints based on Jewish and Israeli identity, are treated in the same manner,” wrote Shipman.“Formally adding the consideration of the IHRA definition into our existing anti-discrimination policies strengthens our approach to combating antisemitism.”The definition, which describes antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”, has been adopted by the US state department and several European government and EU groups.However, critics have say it is designed to shield Israel by punishing legitimate criticism of the country. They also complain that it conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism.Among the examples of criticisms accompanying the definition are “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”, “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nations” and “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel … than to the interests of their own nations”.Donald Trump gave the IHRA definition a significant boost during his presidency by issuing an executive order in 2018 requiring all federal government agencies to take account of it when handling civil rights complaints.In adopting it now, Columbia is following Harvard, which agreed to embrace the definition last January as part of a court settlement reached with Jewish students, who had accused the university of failing to protect them under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The act prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or ethnic origin in programs or institutions receiving federal funding.While Harvard remains in dispute with the White House after refusing to bow to its demands in return for the unfreezing of federal funding, Columbia has been accused of surrendering vital academic freedoms in an initial agreement with the administration reached last March that will see it reform its protest and security policies, while restricting the autonomy of its Middle Eastern studies department.Shipman has insisted that the university is “following the law” and denied that it is guilty of “capitulation”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionColumbia’s previous president, Minouche Shafik, resigned last August following sustained criticism, including in Congress, over her failure to end months of campus protests, despite calling in New York police to dismantle an encampment.In her letter, Shipman said last March’s agreement was “only a starting point for change”.“The fact that we’ve faced pressure from the government does not make the problems on our campuses any less real; a significant part of our community has been deeply affected in negative ways,” she wrote. “Committing to reform on our own is a more powerful path. It will better enable us to recognize our shortcomings and create lasting change.”However, the New York Times recently reported that the university was nearing an agreement to pay Jewish complainants more than $200m in compensation for civil rights violations that would be part of the deal to have its funding restored.The deal is likely to require further reforms in return for restored funding but stops short of requiring a judge-approved consent decree, which had been in an initial draft and would have given the Trump administration significant control over the university. More

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    What are rescissions – and why does Trump want Congress to approve them?

    Congressional Republicans are pushing for passage of a rescissions package, legislation requested by Donald Trump that will claw back $9bn in funding intended for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting.The bill, which is part of the president’s campaign to slash government spending, passed the House last month, and is now being debated in the Senate. What is a rescissions package?Congress controls the power of the purse by approving a budget and then appropriating money. But under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the president may request the rescission of previously authorized funds, and Congress has 45 days to approve it, otherwise the money must be spent.Why are Republicans rushing to pass the rescissions package?The 45 days on Trump’s package of rescissions requests expires on Friday, hence the reason why the GOP is moving to quickly pass the bill. It also explains why the House speaker, Mike Johnson, on Tuesday pleaded with the Senate to “pass it as is” – meaning the version of the bill that passed his chamber last month.What funding does Trump want to cancel?The White House has proposed cancelling a total of $9bn in authorized funding, including $1.1bn budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and about $8bn meant for foreign assistance programs. On the chopping block is money meant for organizations affiliated with the United Nations and other international organizations, including the World Health Organization and the UN human rights council, as well as for refugee assistance and some USAID programs.Is the White House getting everything it wants?No. It initially proposed a rescissions package totaling $9.4bn, but the Senate decided to preserve $400m in funding for Pepfar, a program credited with saving millions of people from infection or death from HIV that was created in 2003, under the Republican president George W Bush.How controversial is the package among Republicans?Fairly controversial. Four Republicans voted against it in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate, three Republicans opposed it, requiring the vice-president, JD Vance, to show up and break the 50-50 tie vote that resulted.Which Republican senators voted no, and why?The Republican senators who opposed it were Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, along with Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s former Senate leader who will retire after next year. All three complained that the White House did not provide enough details of exactly what funding would be canceled, while Collins and Murkowski, both moderates, also oppose slashing funding for public broadcasters.What happens after it passes the Senate?If changes are made in the upper chamber’s version it will return to the House for a final vote.Is this the end of the Trump administration’s plans to slash government funding?No. Further cuts to government departments and initiatives are expected in the forthcoming budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins on 1 October. More

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    America’s famed ‘checks-and-balances’ governance system is failing | Jan-Werner Müller

    It has been said many times, but saying it appears to have no consequences: our system of checks and balances is failing. The US supreme court allowing the president effectively to abolish the Department of Education only reinforces this sense; Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, explicitly wrote that “the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave” – but she did not explain how to counter the threat.The picture is complicated by the fact that what critics call “the stranglehold the checks and balances narrative on the American political imagination” has prevented positive democratic change. Hence it is crucial to understand where the separation of powers itself needs to be kept in check and where it can play a democracy-reinforcing role. Most important, we need counterstrategies against the Trumpists’ usurpation of what should remain separate powers.While pious talk of the founders’ genius in establishing “checks and balances” is part of US civil religion and constitutional folklore, the system in fact never functioned quite as intended. The framers had assumed that individuals would jealously guard the rights of the branches they occupied. Instead, the very thing that the founders dreaded as dangerous “factions” – what we call political parties – emerged already by the end of the 18th century; and thereby also arose the possibility of unified party government.The other unexpected development was the increasing power of the presidency; the founders had always seen the legislature as the potential source of tyranny; instead, the second half of the 20th century saw the consolidation of an “imperial presidency”, whose powers have steadily increased as a result of various real (and often imagined) emergencies. Some jurists even blessed this development, going back to Hamilton’s call for an energetic executive, and trusting that public opinion, rather than Congress or the courts, would prove an effective check on an otherwise “unbound executive”.The dangers posed by unified party control and a strong presidency were long mitigated by the relative heterogeneity of parties in the US; internal dissent meant that Congress would often thwart an executive’s agenda. Less obviously, Congress’s creation of largely independent agencies, acting on the basis of expertise, as well as inspectors general within the executive itself established an internal system of checks. It also remains true, though, that, compared with democracies such as Germany and the UK, an opposition party in the US does not have many rights (such as chairing committees) or ways of holding a chief executive accountable (just imagine if Trump had to face a weekly prime minister’s question time, rather than sycophantic Fox hosts).Most important, though, the executive itself tended to respect the powers of other branches. But Trump: not so much. In line with his governance model, of doing something plainly illegal and then seeing what happens, Trump is usurping powers reserved for the legislature. He uses money as he sees fit, not as Congress intended; he, not Congress, decides which departments are necessary. The tariff madness could be over if Congress called the bluff on a supposed “emergency” which justifies Trump’s capricious conduct of slapping countries with apparently random levies. The most egregious example is his recent threat vis-à-vis Brazil which has nothing to with trade deficits, but is meant to help his ideological ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro, escape a criminal trial for a coup attempt.Trump is also destroying the internal checks within the executive. Inspectors general have been fired; independent agencies are made subservient to the president – in line with the theory of a “unified executive” long promoted by conservative jurists. The US supreme court, occupied to 67% by Maga has been blessing every power grab. As the legal scholar Steve Vladeck noted, the court has granted Trump relief in every single emergency application since early April, with seven decisions – like this week’s on the Department of Education – coming with no explanation at all. If this were happening in other countries, one would plainly speak of a captured court, that is to say: one subordinated to the governing party. As commentators have pointed out, it is inconceivable that this court would simply rubber-stamp a decision by a President Mamdani to fire almost everyone at the Department of Homeland Security.Still, the main culprit is the Republican party in Congress. There is simply no credible version of “conservatism” that justifies Trump’s total concentration of power; and anyone with an ounce of understanding of the constitution would recognize the daily violations. This case can be made without buying into the separation of powers narrative criticized by the left (though what they aim at is less the existence of checks as such, but the empowerment of rural minorities in the Senate and the proliferation of veto points in the political system, such that powerful private interests can stop popular legislation).Paradoxically, Democrats should probably make Congress even more dysfunctional than it already is: use every procedural means to grind business to a halt and explain to the public that – completely contrary to the founders’ anxieties – the emasculation of the legislature is causing democracy’s demise (it never hurts to slip in such gendered language to provoke the Republican masculinists).Of course, one might question what role public opinion can really play as a check, and whether there’s still such a thing at all given our fragmented media world: it never constrained the George W Bush administration’s “global war on terror” in the way that Hamilton’s self-declared disciples had hoped. But it’s still the best bet. After all, there is a reason why some jurists see “we the people” as the fourth branch that ultimately makes the difference.

    Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More

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    US sends migrants to Eswatini after ban lifted on third-country deportations

    A flight carrying immigrants deported from the US has landed in Eswatini, the homeland security department announced, in a move that follows the supreme court lifting limits on deporting migrants to third countries.In a post online, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin named five deportees from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen and said they were convicted of crimes ranging from child rape to murder.“A safe third country deportation flight to Eswatini in Southern Africa has landed. This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back,” McLaughlin said late on Tuesday.In late June, the US supreme court cleared the way for president Donald Trump’s administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face. The decision handed the government a win in its aggressive pursuit of mass deportations.On 4 July, the US completed deportation of eight other migrants to conflict-plagued South Sudan. The men had been put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, which was diverted to a base in Djibouti, where they had been held in a converted shipping container.Tom Homan, the US border tsar, said last week he did not know what happened to the eight men deported to South Sudan, saying: “If we removed somebody to Sudan, they could stay there a week and leave, I don’t know.”Earlier this month, a top Trump administration official said in a memo that immigration officials may deport migrants to countries other than their home nations with as little as six hours’ notice.US immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) will generally wait at least 24 hours to deport someone after informing them of their removal to a so-called “third country,” according to a memo dated 9 July from the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons.Ice could remove them, however, to a so-called “third country” with as little as six hours’ notice “in exigent circumstances,” the memo said, as long as the person was provided the chance to speak with an attorney.The memo stated that migrants could be sent to nations that have pledged not to persecute or torture them “without the need for further procedures.” The new Ice policy suggested the Trump administration could move quickly to send migrants to countries around the world.Human rights advocates have raised due process and other concerns over Trump’s immigration policies that his administration has cast as measures aimed at improving domestic security.Eswatini, the last absolute monarchy in Africa, has been led by King Mswati III since 1986. The 57-year-old ruler has been criticised for his lavish lifestyle and has faced accusations of human rights violations.His country, formerly known as Swaziland, is landlocked by neighbours South Africa and Mozambique.Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report More

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    Medical charlatans have existed through history. But AI has turbocharged them | Edna Bonhomme

    Nearly a year into parenting, I’ve relied on advice and tricks to keep my baby alive and entertained. For the most part, he’s been agile and vivacious, and I’m beginning to see an inquisitive character develop from the lump of coal that would suckle from my breast. Now he’s started nursery (or what Germans refer to as Kita), other parents in Berlin, where we live, have warned me that an avalanche of illnesses will come flooding in. So during this particular stage of uncertainty, I did what many parents do: I consulted the internet.This time, I turned to ChatGPT, a source I had vowed never to use. I asked a straightforward but fundamental question: “How do I keep my baby healthy?” The answers were practical: avoid added sugar, monitor for signs of fever and talk to your baby often. But the part that left me wary was the last request: “If you tell me your baby’s age, I can tailor this more precisely.” Of course, I should be informed about my child’s health, but given my growing scepticism towards AI, I decided to log off.Earlier this year, an episode in the US echoed my little experiment. With a burgeoning measles outbreak, children’s health has become a significant political battleground, and the Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy, has initiated a campaign titled the Make America Healthy Again commission, aimed at combating childhood chronic disease. The corresponding report claimed to address the principal threats to children’s health: pesticides, prescription drugs and vaccines. Yet the most striking aspect of the report was the pattern of citation errors and unsubstantiated conclusions. External researchers and journalists believed that these pointed to the use of ChatGPT in compiling the report.What made this more alarming was that the Maha report allegedly included studies that did not exist. This coincides with what we already know about AI, which has been found not only to include false citations but also to “hallucinate”, that is, to invent nonexistent material. The epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who was listed in the Maha report as the first author of a study on anxiety and adolescents, said: “The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with.”The threat of AI may feel new, but its role in spreading medical myths fits into an old mould: that of the charlatan peddling false cures. During the 17th and 18th centuries, there was no shortage of quacks selling reagents intended to counteract intestinal ruptures and eye pustules. Although not medically trained, some, such as Buonafede Vitali and Giovanni Greci, were able to obtain a licence to sell their serums. Having a public platform as grand as the square meant they could gather in public and entertain bystanders, encouraging them to purchase their products, which included balsamo simpatico (sympathetic balm) to treat venereal diseases.RFK Jr believes that he is an arbiter of science, even if the Maha report appears to have cited false information. What complicates charlatanry today is that we’re in an era of far more expansive tools, such as AI, which ultimately have more power than the swindlers of the past. This disinformation may appear on platforms that we believe to be reliable, such as search engines, or masquerade as scientific papers, which we’re used to seeing as the most reliable sources of all.Ironically, Kennedy has claimed that leading peer-reviewed scientific journals such as the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine are corrupt. His stance is especially troubling, given the influence he wields in shaping public health discourse, funding and official panels. Moreover, his efforts to implement his Maha programme undermine the very concept of a health programme. Unlike science, which strives to uncover the truth, AI has no interest in whether something is true or false.AI is very convenient, and people often turn to it for medical advice; however, there are significant concerns with its use. It is injurious enough to refer to it as an individual, but when a government significantly relies on AI for medical reports, this can lead to misleading conclusions about public health. A world filled with AI platforms creates an environment where fact and fiction meld into each other, leaving minimal foundation for scientific objectivity.The technology journalist Karen Hao astutely reflected in the Atlantic: “How do we govern artificial intelligence? With AI on track to rewire a great many other crucial functions in society, that question is really asking: how do we ensure that we’ll make our future better, not worse?” We need to address this by establishing a way to govern its use, rather than adopting a heedless approach to AI by the government.Individual solutions can be helpful in assuaging our fears, but we require robust and adaptable policies to hold big tech and governments accountable regarding AI misuse. Otherwise, we risk creating an environment where charlatanism becomes the norm.

    Edna Bonhomme is a historian of science More

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    Adelita Grijalva wins Arizona Democratic primary for House seat

    Adelita Grijalva won the Democratic House primary in Arizona to succeed her father, beating a young social media activist in a closely watched election seen as a test of the party’s generational divide.Raúl Grijalva, a longtime congressman in southern Arizona, died from cancer earlier this year and left a vacancy in the state’s seventh district. The younger Grijalva, a 54-year-old who served for 20 years on a Tucson school board, has been a Pima county supervisor since 2020.Grijalva, a progressive, has said upholding democracy, standing up for immigrant rights and protecting access to Medicaid and Medicare are among her top priorities.“This is a victory not for me, but for our community and the progressive movement my dad started in Southern Arizona more than 50 years ago,” Grijalva said in a statement.She faced an insurgent challenger in Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old social media influencer and activist whose campaign focused on her personal story of using the kinds of government programs the Trump administration has attacked. Foxx also called out Grijalva for her “legacy last name” and said political roles shouldn’t be inherited.“I’m not using my dad’s last name,” Adelita Grijalva previously told the Guardian. “It’s mine, too. I’ve worked in this community for a very long time – 26 years at a nonprofit, 20 years on the school board, four years and four months on the board of supervisors. I’ve earned my last name too.”Grijalva won easily. She led her next closest rival, Foxx, by about 40 percentage points when the Associated Press declared her the winner. She had a large lead in all seven counties that are all or partially in the district, including the most populous, Pima County, which includes Tucson and its western suburbs.Grijalva also racked up a lengthy list of heavyweight endorsements – including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and several state and local officials.The district, which includes parts of Tucson and Arizona’s borderlands, is strongly blue, meaning the winner of the primary is the likely victor of the general. But three Republicans ran in their party’s primary; Daniel Butierez will face Adelita Grijalva in the general on 23 September.National Democratic infighting brought extra attention to the race, with Foxx bringing up questions of seniority and nepotism. Raúl Grijalva was one of three Democratic lawmakers to die in office this year. Foxx received backing from Leaders We Deserve, David Hogg’s Pac, which is challenging incumbents in Democratic primaries as it seeks to remake the party.The seat will not decide control of the US House, but it is one of three vacancies in heavily Democratic districts that, when filled in special elections this fall, will probably chip away at Republicans’ slender 220-212 majority in the chamber. More

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    Senate Republicans advance Trump bill to cancel $9bn in approved spending

    Senate Republicans on Tuesday advanced Donald Trump’s request to cancel about $9bn in previously approved spending, overcoming concerns about what the rescissions could mean for impoverished people around the globe and for public radio and television stations in their home states.JD Vance broke the tie on the procedural vote, allowing the measure to advance, 51-50.A final vote in the Senate could occur as early as Wednesday. The bill would then return to the House for another vote before it would go to the US president’s desk for his signature before a Friday deadline.Republicans winnowed down the president’s request by taking out his proposed $400m cut to a program known as Pepfar. That change increased the prospects for the bill’s passage. The politically popular program is credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under then president George W Bush to combat HIV/Aids.Trump is also looking to claw back money for foreign aid programs targeted by his so-called “department of government efficiency” and for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.“When you’ve got a $36tn debt, we have to do something to get spending under control,” said Senate majority leader John Thune.Republicans met with Russ Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, during their weekly conference luncheon as the White House worked to address their concerns. He fielded about 20 questions from senators. There was some back and forth, but many of the concerns were focused on working toward a resolution, either through arrangements with the administration directly or via an amendment to the bill, said senator John Hoeven.The White House campaign to win over potential holdouts had some success. Senator Mike Rounds tweeted that he would vote to support the measure after working with the administration to “find Green New Deal money that could be reallocated to continue grants to tribal radio stations without interruption”.Some senators worried that the cuts to public media could decimate many of the 1,500 local radio and television stations around the country that rely on some federal funding to operate. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting distributes more than 70% of its funding to those stations.Maine senator Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate appropriations committee, said the substitute package marked “progress”, but she still raised issues with it, particularly on a lack of specifics from the White House. She questioned how the package could still total $9 billion while also protecting programs that Republicans favor.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she didn’t want the Senate to be going through numerous rounds of rescissions.“We are lawmakers. We should be legislating,” Murkowski said. “What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told: ‘This is the priority and we want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that.”But the large majority of Republicans were supportive of Trump’s request.“This bill is a first step in a long but necessary fight to put our nation’s fiscal house in order,” said senator Eric Schmitt.Democrats oppose the package. They see Trump’s request as an effort to erode the Senate filibuster. They also warn it’s absurd to expect them to work with Republicans on bipartisan spending measures if Republicans turn around a few months later and use their majority to cut the parts they don’t like.“It shreds the appropriations process,” said senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats. “The appropriations committee, and indeed this body, becomes a rubber stamp for whatever the administration wants.”Democratic leader Chuck Schumer cautioned that tens of millions of Americans rely on local public radio and television stations for local news, weather alerts and educational programs. He warned that many could lose access to that information because of the rescissions.“And these cuts couldn’t come at a worse time,” Schumer said. “The floods in Texas remind us that speedy alerts and up-to-the-minute forecasts can mean the difference between life and death.”Democrats also scoffed at the GOP’s stated motivation for taking up the bill. The amount of savings pales compared to the $3.4trn in projected deficits over the next decade that Republicans put in motion in passing Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill two weeks ago.“Now, Republicans are pretending they are concerned about the debt,” said senator Patty Murray. “So concerned that they need to shut down local radio stations, so concerned they are going to cut off Sesame Street … The idea that that is about balancing the debt is laughable.”With Republicans providing enough votes to take up the bill, it sets up the potential for 10 hours of debate plus votes on scores of potentially thorny amendments in what is known as a vote-a-rama. The House has already shown its support for the president’s request with a mostly party line 214-212 vote, but since the Senate is amending the bill, it will have to go back to the House for another vote.Republicans who vote against the measure also face the prospect of incurring Trump’s wrath. He has issued a warning on his social media site directly aimed at individual Senate Republicans who may be considering voting against the rescissions package. He said it was important that all Republicans adhere to the bill and in particular defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.“Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,” he said. More