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      Trump moves to scrap climate rule tying greenhouse gases to public health harm

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      Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule rescinds a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.The “endangerment finding” is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.The EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced the proposed rule change on a podcast ahead of an official announcement set for Tuesday in Indiana.Repealing the endangerment finding “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America”, Zeldin said on the Ruthless podcast.Zeldin called for a rewrite of the endangerment finding in March as part of a series of environmental rollbacks announced at the same time in what Zeldin said was “the greatest day of deregulation in American history”. A total of 31 key environmental rules on topics from clean air to clean water and climate change would be rolled back or repealed under Zeldin’s plan.He singled out the endangerment finding as “the holy grail of the climate change religion” and said he was thrilled to end it “as the EPA does its part to usher in the Golden Age of American success”.The EPA also called for rescinding limits on tailpipe emissions that were designed to encourage automakers to build and sell more electric vehicles. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US.Three former EPA leaders have criticized Zeldin, saying his March proposal would endanger the lives of millions of Americans and abandon the agency’s dual mission to protect the environment and human health.“If there’s an endangerment finding to be found anywhere, it should be found on this administration because what they’re doing is so contrary to what the Environmental Protection Agency is about,” Christine Todd Whitman, who led EPA under the Republican president George W Bush, said after Zeldin’s plan was made public.The EPA proposal follows an executive order from Trump that directed the agency to submit a report “on the legality and continuing applicability” of the endangerment finding.Conservatives and some congressional Republicans hailed the initial plan, calling it a way to undo economically damaging rules to regulate greenhouse gases.But environmental groups, legal experts and Democrats said any attempt to repeal or roll back the endangerment finding would be an uphill task with slim chance of success. The finding came two years after a 2007 supreme court ruling holding that the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said it was virtually “impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding [to the 2009 standard] that would stand up in court”.Doniger and other critics accused Trump’s Republican administration of using potential repeal of the endangerment finding as a “kill shot’’ that would allow him to make all climate regulations invalid. If finalized, repeal of the endangerment finding would erase current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could prevent future administrations from proposing rules to tackle climate change.“The endangerment finding is the legal foundation that underpins vital protections for millions of people from the severe threats of climate change, and the Clean Car and Truck Standards are among the most important and effective protections to address the largest US source of climate-causing pollution,” said Peter Zalzal, associate vice-president of the Environmental Defense Fund.“Attacking these safeguards is manifestly inconsistent with EPA’s responsibility to protect Americans’ health and wellbeing,” he said. “It is callous, dangerous and a breach of our government’s responsibility to protect the American people from this devastating pollution.” More

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      Justice department asked California to give details of non-citizens on voter rolls

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      The Department of Justice has asked several large California counties to provide detailed personal information of non-citizens who got on to the state voter rolls, an unusual request that comes as the Trump administration has asked about a dozen states to provide wide swaths of information about voters and election practices.The justice department’s voting section sent identical letters to local election officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego on 9 July. The request asks the officials to provide the total number of non-citizens who had their voter registrations cancelled since 2020 as well as a copy of their voter registration records, voting history, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of a social security number. The department sent a similar request to Orange county last month and then sued the county after officials redacted some information.“It’s deeply troubling,” said David Becker, the executive director for the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “It reflects a pretty shocking misunderstanding of federal law regarding list maintenance.”The request for information on non-citizens comes as the Trump administration has arrested and moved to deport thousands of immigrants. Submitting a voter registration form while ineligible to vote is a crime so non-citizens that do so could be prosecuted and potentially deported. This kind of voter fraud, however, is extremely rare.All three counties said they were reviewing the justice department’s request. The justice department did not return a request for comment.The justice department’s voting section has sent out extensive requests for information to nearly a dozen states recently, many of them focused on how states are removing people from the rolls and suggesting that states are not doing enough to cancel voter registrations of people who are ineligible to cast a ballot. It has also asked many states to turn over all of their voter registration records. At least two states, New Hampshire and Minnesota, have refused so far. “The Department of Justice did not, however, identify any legal basis in its June 25 letter that would entitle it to Minnesota’s voter registration list. Nor did it explain how this information would be used, stored, and secured,” a lawyer for the Minnesota secretary of state’s office wrote on 25 July.It is a focus that underscores how the justice department’s voting section is shifting away from enforcing anti-discrimination in voting laws and instead hunting for voter fraud.“For years now, we’ve seen suits from those conservative groups saying that jurisdictions aren’t purging enough folks from their rolls and claiming that they’ve identified non-citizens on the rolls and that kind of thing. And now we’re seeing the Department of Justice do something very similar,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “This is a civil rights division and a voting section in particular that are very focused on trying to prove some kind of fraud.”Federal law requires states to regularly check their rolls for people who are ineligible because they have moved or died, with safeguards in place to ensure that eligible voters are not erroneously moved. Republicans have long complained that states are not aggressive enough in removing voters, while Democrats have pointed to errors states have made to justify the continued existence of the safeguards.Trump has often repeated the false claim that non-citizens are voting in significant numbers in US elections, including last month when he said Los Angeles and other Democratic-leaning cities were using “Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base” and “cheat in elections”. A provision in Trump’s March executive order on elections instructs the attorney general to prioritize enforcing laws that prevent non-citizen voting. Numerous studies have shown that non-citizen voting is exceedingly rare.“This refocus is troubling in part because it means taking away focus from actually enforcing the legal protections for voting rights that the voting rights section has historically been enforcing,” Morales-Doyle said. “It seems to be investing a bunch of resources in going after a problem that is infinitesimally rare.”There have been isolated instances of non-citizens becoming registered in recent years, but it is often due to confusion about their eligibility. In 2018, for example, a federal prosecutor in North Carolina charged 20 non-citizens with illegally voting and several of them said they had no idea they were ineligible.Last month, election officials in Orange county, California, told the justice department that 17 non-citizens had become registered to vote since 2020. Sixteen of those people self-reported they were non-citizens, according to the Los Angeles Times.The election officials provided the information in June after justice department officials made a similar request to the one submitted to Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. While election officials turned over the names and dates of birth of those who registered, they redacted their social security and driver’s license numbers, citing state privacy laws, the Los Angeles Times reported. When Orange county officials offered to work on a confidentiality agreement under which they could provide the records, justice department responded by suing the county for the records.“These efforts make it clear President Trump is preparing to use the power of his office to interfere in the 2026 election,” said Samantha Tarazi, CEO and co-founder of Voting Rights Lab, a non-profit that is tracking the justice department’s outreach to states. “What started as an unconstitutional executive order – marching orders for state action regardless of its fate in court – has grown into a full federal mobilization to seize power over our elections.To justify its request for records to the California counties, the justice department pointed to two federal laws, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Help America Vote Act (Hava) that set requirements for how states must maintain their voter rolls. Neither statute requires states to continually search for non-citizens on their voter rolls, Becker said.“There is literally nothing in federal law anywhere that requires states to continually search for non-citizens on their voter lists,” he said. “States can do this if they choose to. But the federal government plays absolutely no role in that unless a state affirmatively asks them to.”The justice department cited a provision of the NVRA that requires states to come up with a general program for removing voters from the rolls because they have either died or moved. It also cited a provision of Hava that requires states to have a system for removing ineligible voters from the rolls and not to accept a federal voter registration application unless voters provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number.“I don’t understand how having the name and [personal identifying information] of any voter tells you anything about whether a county is or isn’t complying with the NVRA and Hava,” Levitt said. “The civil rights division hasn’t really established a legitimate need for the information they’re demanding. Which means they’re not really entitled to the information.” More

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      ‘Shooting ourselves in the foot’: how Trump is fumbling geothermal energy

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      Geothermal is one of the most promising clean energy sources in the US, providing 24/7 renewable power that could meet rising energy demand from AI datacentres. But former Department of Energy officials are alarmed that Donald Trump is fumbling its potential.Compared with other clean energy sources such as solar and wind, geothermal enjoys rare bipartisan support. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, has praised the technology, calling it “an awesome resource that’s under our feet”. And Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act preserved tax credits for geothermal.But the administration’s slashing of Department of Energy staff, delays in issuing low-interest loans, and tariffs are together creating uncertainty for the industry and investors.The US has an advantage on geothermal over China and must move urgently, said David Turk, who served as the deputy secretary of energy under former president Joe Biden. “Anything that stops our ability to execute on a plan – staffing, other funding – I think, is shooting ourselves in the foot,” Turk said.The White House and Department of Energy did not respond to questions about how their policies are affecting enhanced geothermal.The potential of geothermalGeothermal energy uses the heat from the Earth’s crust to transform water into steam that turns turbines and generates electricity. It has been used for more than a century, but has been limited to places where hot water reached the Earth’s surface, including hot springs.Now there’s a new technique that can generate energy anywhere, known as enhanced geothermal. The same horizontal drilling approach used in fracking can reach hot rock deep below the surface. “It opens up enhanced geothermal all over the country, all over the world,” Turk said. “That’s just tremendous.”So far, enhanced geothermal systems are located in the Western US. One of the most promising geothermal projects by Fervo Energy can be found in Utah. But the technology can also work in the east.The US is ahead of other countries on enhanced geothermal because of its shale gas boom over the past 15 years, said Eva Schill, a staff scientist who leads the Geothermal Systems Program at Berkeley Lab. “The reason is that we have a lot of experience here from oil and gas fracking,” she said.The enhanced geothermal industry is nascent, generating only 1% of the US’s electricity. And it’s still too expensive to compete with coal and natural gas.View image in fullscreenBut under the right conditions, it could evolve into a cheap source of power. A January article in the journal Nature Reviews found that it could be cost competitive with the national average cost of electricity generation by 2030.The US is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, and although US emissions have trended downward for the past two decades, the country is still not on track to meet its climate targets. The rapid growth of AI datacentres is further threatening those targets by fueling rising energy demand; datacentres need to run 24/7, so they tend to rely on fossil fuels.Geothermal can potentially solve that problem. It could create 80,000 megawatts of new power, according to a liftoff report published by the Department of Energy.“To put that in perspective, that could meet 100% of all of the AI datacenter load growth for the next 10 years,” said Jigar Shah, a clean energy entrepreneur who served as the director of the loan programs office at the Department of Energy under Joe Biden. “That’s pretty impressive.”Already, Google and Meta have signed deals that would see geothermal companies power their datacentres.How the Trump administration is fumbling geothermalEnhanced geothermal accelerated under Biden-era policies. But several former energy department officials say the Trump administration is failing to provide the business certainty needed to get the fledgling industry off the ground.“The whole ball game right now is bringing down those costs, proving it for investors,” Turk said.“This is really about feelings,” Shah said. “Do the investors feel like this administration really has their back when it comes to investing in these new technologies? They felt like we actually had their back when I was running the loan programs office, and when secretary [Jennifer] Granholm was running energy. They’re unsure whether this administration has their back on these technologies.”View image in fullscreenUnder the Biden administration, the loan programs office was working on closing a low-interest loan for geothermal. Similar loans previously boosted Tesla and utility-scale solar. However, the Trump administration has yet to close a low-interest loan for geothermal, Shah said.The gutting of energy department staff has lowered its capacity to support geothermal, several former energy department officials said. Thousands of scientists, analysts, engineers and procurement officers took deferred resignation offers or were fired. Politico reported that the administration was considering cutting loan programs office staff by half.The Department of Energy has lost “absolutely indispensable” experts on geothermal and loans, Turk said. “So I would worry about, have we lost some of that capacity to actually execute?”Trump’s zeal for tariffs is adding to the industry’s anxiety. Steel tariffs, now at 50%, are hurting companies that use steel in wells. Enhanced geothermal wells require installing miles of steel pipes.Behind the scenes, geothermal companies are “freaking out” about the steel tariffs, Shah said. “They don’t want to say anything negative, lest the Eye of Sauron find them,” he added.The survival of the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for geothermal provides some certainty. Geothermal can still access the full tax credit, as long as they begin construction by 2033, when the value of the credit will begin phasing down.But geothermal projects now face strict restrictions on the involvement of “foreign entities of concern,” such as Chinese companies and individuals, known as FEOC requirements. Geothermal projects use rare earth elements in their drill bits, and China dominates the rare earth minerals market, said a former energy department official who requested anonymity.What Trump officials can do to boost geothermal“This is a good enough market opportunity that somewhere in the world is going to come true, and we are really well set up for it, if we’re not stupid,” the official said, talking generally about the industry. “But we’ve unfortunately been pretty stupid, and we’re making it harder on ourselves to win in an area that should be pretty easy to win.”There are actions the Trump administration can take immediately to bring down costs and boost the industry.The government can speed things along by “doing a lot of mapping of resources to make it cheaper and less risky for drilling in this area versus that area”, Turk said.“Close a loan,” Shah said, explaining that it would send a strong signal to investors.“We have the technology, we have the tools – the loan programs office and other tools – and I think now what we really need to do is establish the confidence,” Shah said. More

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      ‘Cemetery of the living dead’: Venezuelans recall 125 days in notorious El Salvador prison

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      Arturo Suárez struggles to pinpoint the worst moment of his incarceration inside a prison the warden boasted was “a cemetery of the living dead”.Was it the day inmates became so exasperated at being beaten by guards that they threatened to hang themselves with their sheets? “The only weapon we had was our own lives,” recalled the Venezuelan former detainee.Was it when prisoners staged a “blood strike”, cutting their arms with broken pipes and smearing their bedclothes with crimson messages of despair? “SOS!” they wrote.Or was rock bottom for Suárez when he turned 34 while stranded in a Central American penitentiary prison officers had claimed he would only leave in a body bag?Suárez, a reggaeton musician known by the stage name SuarezVzla, was one of 252 Venezuelans who found themselves trapped inside El Salvador’s notorious “Cecot” terrorism confinement centre after becoming embroiled in Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade.After 125 days behind bars, Suárez and the other detainees were freed on 18 July after a prisoner swap deal between Washington and Caracas. Since flying home to Venezuela, they have started to open up about their torment, offering a rare and disturbing glimpse of the human toll of President Nayib Bukele’s authoritarian crackdown in El Salvador and Trump’s campaign against immigration.View image in fullscreenSuárez said conditions inside the maximum security prison were so dire he and other inmates considered killing themselves. “My daughter’s really little and she needs me. But we’d made up our minds. We decided to put an end to this nightmare,” he said, although the prisoners stepped back from the brink.Another detainee, Neiyerver Rengel, 27, described his panic after guards claimed he would probably spend 90 years there. “I felt shattered, destroyed,” said the Venezuelan barber, who was deported to Cecot after being captured in Irving, Texas.Trump officials called the Venezuelans – many of whom had no criminal background – “heinous monsters” and “terrorists” but largely failed to produce proof, with many seemingly targeted simply for being Venezuelan and having tattoos.Norman Eisen, the executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, which is helping Rengel sue the US government for $1.3m, called the “abduction” of scores of Venezuelans a stain on his country’s reputation. “It is shocking and shameful and every patriotic American should be disgusted by it,” said Eisen, who expected other freed prisoners to take legal action.Suárez’s journey to one of the world’s harshest prisons began in Chile’s capital, Santiago, where the singer had moved after fleeing Venezuela’s economic collapse in 2016.One day early last year, before deciding to migrate to the US, Suárez watched a viral YouTube video about the “mega-prison” by the Mexican influencer Luisito Comunica.Bukele officials had invited Comunica to film inside Cecot as part of propaganda efforts to promote an anti-gang offensive that has seen 2%of the country’s adult population jailed since 2022. Suárez, then a fan of El Salvador’s social media-savvy president, was gripped. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could afford a package tour to go and visit Cecot?” he recalled joking to his wife. Little did the couple know that Suárez would soon be languishing in Cecot’s cage-like cells, sleeping on a metal bunk bed.View image in fullscreenAfter entering the US in September 2024, Suárez worked odd jobs in North Carolina. In February, three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, he was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents and, in mid-March, put on a deportation flight, the destination of which was not revealed. When the plane landed, its passengers – who were instructed to keep its blinds closed – had no idea where they were. The penny dropped when one detainee disobeyed the order and spotted El Salvador’s flag outside. “That’s when we understood … where we were heading – to Cecot,” he said.Suárez described the hours that followed as a blur of verbal abuse and beatings, as disoriented prisoners were frogmarched on to buses that took them to Cecot’s cell block eight.Suárez said the men were forced to shave their heads and told by the warden: “Welcome to hell! Welcome to the cemetery of the living dead! You’ll leave here dead!”As he was dragged off the bus, Suárez, who is shortsighted, said he asked a guard for help because his spectacles were falling off: “He told me to shut up, punched me [in the face] and broke my glasses.”“What am I doing in Cecot?” Suárez recalled thinking. “I’m not a terrorist. I’ve never killed anyone. I make music.”Rengel had almost identical memories of his arrival: “The police officers started saying we were going to die in El Salvador – that it was likely we’d spend 90 years there.”Noah Bullock, the head of the El Salvador-focused human rights group Cristosal, said activists had heard very similar accounts from prisoners in other Salvadoran jails, suggesting such terror tactics were not merely the behaviour of “bad apple prison guards”. “There’s clearly a culture coming from the leadership of the prison system to inculcate the guards into operating this way, [into] using dehumanising and physical abuse in a systematic way.”View image in fullscreenSuárez said the Venezuelans spent the next 16 weeks being woken at 4am, moved between cells holding between 10 and 19 people, and enduring a relentless campaign of physical and psychological abuse. “There’s no life in there,” he said. “The only good thing they did for us was give us a Bible. We sought solace in God and that’s why nobody took their own life.”The musician tried to lift spirits by composing upbeat songs, such as Cell 31, which describes a message from God. “Be patient, my son. Your blessing will soon arrive,” its lyrics say.The song became a prison anthem and Suárez said inmates sang it, one day in March, when the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, visited Cecot to pose by its packed cells. “We aren’t terrorists! We aren’t criminals! Help!” the Venezuelans bellowed. But their pleas were ignored and the mood grew increasingly desperate, as the inmates were deprived of contact with relatives, lawyers and even the sun. “There came a point where we had no motivation, no strength left,” Rengel said.Only in mid-June was there a glimmer of hope when prisoners were given shampoo, razors and soap and measured for clothes. “They obviously wanted to hide what had happened from the world,” said Suárez, who sensed release might be close. One month later the men were free.Suárez said he was determined to speak out now he was safely back in his home town of Caracas. “The truth must be … heard all over the world. Otherwise what they did to us will be ignored,” said the musician, who admitted he had once been an admirer of Bukele’s populist campaigns against political corruption and gangs. “Now I realise it’s just a complete farce because how can you negotiate with human lives? How can you use human beings as bargaining chips?” Suárez said.A spokesperson for El Salvador’s government did not respond to questions about the prisoners’ allegations. Last week, the homeland security department’s assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, dismissed prisoners’ claims of abuses as “false sob stories”.Suárez hoped never to set foot in El Salvador or the US again but said he forgave his captors. “And I hope they can forgive themselves,” he added. “And realise that while they might escape the justice of man they will never be able to escape divine justice.” More

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      As Trump’s tariff regime becomes clear, Americans may start to foot the bill

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      Burying the hatchet with Brussels, Donald Trump – flanked by the leader of the European Commission – hailed a bold new era of transatlantic relations, an ambitious economic pact, and declared: “This was a very big day for free and fair trade.”That was seven years ago. And then on Sunday, the US president – flanked by a different leader of the European Commission – hailed another new era of transatlantic relations, another economic pact and declared: “I think it’s the biggest deal ever made.”Trumpian hyperbole can typically be relied upon as long as he’s in the room, at the lectern or typing into Truth Social. What matters after that is the underlying detail – and we have very little, beyond a handful of big numbers designed to grab headlines.What we do know, as a result of this deal, is that European exports to the US will face a blanket 15% tariff: a tax expected, at least in part, to be passed along to US consumers. The price of key products shipped from the EU, from cars to medicine and wine, is about to come into sharp focus.This pact is not unique. Trump’s agreement with Japan also hits Japanese exports to the US with a 15% tariff. Most British exports to the US face a 10% tariff under his deal with the UK.A string of countries without such accords, including Brazil, Canada and South Korea, are set to face even higher US tariffs from Friday. The Trump administration currently has a blanket 10% levy in place for US imports, although the president threatened to raise this to “somewhere in the 15 to 20% range” earlier this week.Ignore, for a moment, the chaos and the noise. Put to one side the unpredictable stewardship of the world’s largest economy, and its ties with the world. And forget the many U-turns, pauses and reprieves which have followed bold pronouncements, again and again and again.If you, like many businesses in the US and across the world, are struggling to keep up, take a step back and look at a single number. Since Trump took office, the average effective US tariff rate on all goods from overseas has soared to its highest level in almost a century: 18.2%, according to the Budget Lab at Yale.Trump argues this extraordinary jump in tariffs will bring in trillions of dollars to the US federal government. On his watch, tariffs have so far brought in tens of billions of dollars more in revenue this year than at the same point in 2024.But who picks up the bill? The president and his allies have position this fundamental shift in economic policy as a historic move away from taxing Americans toward taxing the world. But in reality, everyone pays.Tariffs are typically paid at the border, by the importer of the product affected. If the tariff on that product suddenly goes from 0% to 15%, the importer – as you’d expected – will try to pass it on. Every company at every stage of the supply chain will quite literally try to pass the buck, as much as possible.And the very end of the chain, economists expect prices will ultimately rise for consumers. The Budget Lab at Yale estimates the short-term impact of Trump’s tariffs so far is a 1.8% rise in US prices: equivalent to an average income loss of $2,400 per US household.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBig firms that have so far done their best to hold prices steady amid the blizzard of tariff uncertainty are now starting to warn of increases. Inflation, which Trump claims is very low in the US, picked up in June.The president appeared to reluctantly reckon with the reality that Americans may start to foot the bill for his tariffs before setting off for Scotland late last week.Asked about the prospect of using revenue from tariffs to distribute “rebate” checks to US consumers, Trump said: “We’re thinking about that, actually … We’re thinking about a rebate, because we have so much money coming in, from tariffs, that a little rebate for people of a certain income level might be very nice.”Given what inflation did to Joe Biden’s electoral fortunes, and Trump’s keen eye for populist policies, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine those cheques – signed by Donald J Trump – landing in bank accounts in time for the midterm elections next November.And such a move would, indeed, be very nice. Especially as it appears increasingly likely that, after this week, Americans will probably be paying more for almost everything. More

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      Trump news at a glance: president wants Murdoch deposed in Epstein libel case within two weeks

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      Donald Trump has asked a US court to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal.The US president sued the publication and its owner over a 17 July article asserting that Trump’s name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Jeffrey Epstein, who was later a convicted sex offender.Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged birthday greeting “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm the president’s reputation. In a court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers said Trump told Murdoch before the article was published that the letter referenced in the story was fake, and Murdoch told Trump he would “take care of it”.“Murdoch’s direct involvement further underscores Defendants’ actual malice,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, referring to the legal standard Trump must clear to prevail in his lawsuit.His lawyers asked US district judge Darrin Gayles in Miami to compel Murdoch, 94, to testify within 15 days. Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, has previously said the paper stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the lawsuit.Here are the key Trump stories of the day:Ghislaine Maxwell asks US supreme court to overturn convictionGhislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, has requested that the US supreme court overturn her conviction, saying she was unjustly prosecuted.Maxwell’s submission to the supreme court comes days after she met justice department officials, as discussions began to see whether she would turn into a US government cooperator. Observers have suggested Maxwell may be able to expose new information about Epstein’s sex trafficking and the wealthy individuals who may have also been involved. It is not clear if Maxwell will become a US government cooperator and what she may receive in return.Read the full storyTrump acknowledges ‘real starvation’ in Gaza Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the region.During a visit to Britain, the US president contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing hunger in Gaza.Trump is under increasing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinians having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organisations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory.Read the full storyJustice department sued over legal memo on Qatar’s luxury jet giftThe US Department of Justice is facing a federal lawsuit for refusing to release a legal memorandum that reportedly cleared the way for Donald Trump’s acceptance of a $400m luxury aircraft from Qatar’s government.Read the full storyTrump’s tariffs to face major court test from US small business ownersDonald Trump’s strategy of imposing sweeping tariffs on America’s main trading partners will face a major test in the US courts on Thursday, four days after the president hailed the “powerful deal” reached with the EU and just hours before a new round of punishing import duties is set to come into effect.Trump has underpinned his tariff policy with an emergency power that is now being challenged as unlawful in the federal courts. On Thursday the US court of appeals for the federal circuit will hear oral arguments in the case, VOS Selections v Trump.Read the full storyUS-EU trade deal is a ‘dark day’ for Europe, says French PMThe French prime minister, François Bayrou, said the EU had capitulated to Donald Trump’s threats of ever-increasing tariffs, as he labelled the framework deal struck in Scotland on Sunday as a “dark day” for the EU.“It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, brought together to affirm their common values and to defend their common interests, resigns itself to submission,” Bayrou wrote on X on Monday.Read the full story Trump cuts deadline for Putin to reach Ukraine peace deal to ‘10 or 12 days’Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer.Read the full storyTrump told to keep funding Planned Parenthood with Medicaid moneyThe Trump administration must continue reimbursing Planned Parenthood clinics for Medicaid-funded services, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in an escalating legal war between the reproductive health giant and the White House over Republican efforts to “defund” Planned Parenthood.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US cannot sell any Virginia-class nuclear submarines to Australia without doubling its production rate, because it is making too few for its own defence, the navy’s nominee for chief of operations has told Congress.

      Twenty-one Senate Democrats are demanding Donald Trump immediately cut funding to a controversial Gaza aid organization they say has resulted in the killings of more than 700 civilians seeking food and violated decades of humanitarian law.

      Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace has claimed she cruises the web for videos of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents dragging people into custody, saying she “can think of nothing more American”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 27 July 2025. More

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      Judge orders Trump administration to continue Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood

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      The Trump administration must continue reimbursing Planned Parenthood clinics for Medicaid-funded services, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in an escalating legal war between the reproductive health giant and the White House over Republican efforts to “defund” Planned Parenthood.Days after Donald Trump signed his sweeping tax bill, Planned Parenthood sued over a provision in the bill that ended Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023, such as Planned Parenthood. The new court order, from US district judge Indira Talwani in Boston, will protect Medicaid funding for all Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide while litigation in the case continues.The order also replaces and expands a previous edict handed down by Talwani, which initially granted a preliminary injunction specifically blocking the government from cutting Medicaid payments only to Planned Parenthood affiliates that did not provide abortions or did not receive at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in a given year.“Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,” Talwani wrote in her Monday order.“In particular, restricting members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs.”More than 80 million people rely on Medicaid, the US government’s insurance program for low-income people.It is already illegal to use Medicaid to pay for most abortions, but Planned Parenthood clinics – which treat a disproportionate number of people who use Medicaid – rely on the program to reimburse it for services such as birth control, STI tests and cancer screenings.In its lawsuit, Planned Parenthood had argued that it would be at risk of closing nearly 200 clinics in 24 states if it is cut off from Medicaid funds. These closures would probably be felt most strongly in blue states, since they are home to larger numbers of people who use Medicaid. A Planned Parenthood affiliate in California has already been forced to close five clinics as a result of the “defunding” provision.Planned Parenthood estimated that, in all, more than 1 million patients could lose care.“We will keep fighting this cruel law so that everyone can get birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings and other critical healthcare, no matter their insurance,” the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s president and CEO, Alexis McGill Johnson, said in a statement after the Monday ruling.Planned Parenthood is battling overwhelming political and economic headwinds. Even if it prevails against the Trump administration, its affiliates could still be removed from Medicaid in red states, thanks to a June decision by the US supreme court in favor of South Carolina in a case involving the state’s attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program.  On Monday, the state of Missouri also sued the Planned Parenthood Federation of America – the mothership organization that knits together Planned Parenthood’s network of regional affiliates – over accusations that the organization downplayed the medical risks of a common abortion pill, mifepristone, “to cut costs and boost revenue”. The lawsuit, which asks for more than $1m in damages, is part of an ongoing campaign by anti-abortion activists to cut off access to mifepristone.More than 100 studies, conducted across dozens of countries and over more than three decades, have concluded that mifepristone is a safe way to end a pregnancy.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president hails US-EU trade deal as House speaker weighs in on Epstein controversy

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      Donald Trump has hailed what he called “a powerful deal” on tariffs with the European Union to avert a damaging transatlantic trade war after months of tough negotiations between the two sides.“It solves a lot of stuff and was a great decision,” the US president said of the agreement after meeting the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, in Scotland. The “important” partnership involved the EU agreeing to spend tens of billions of dollars more on US energy products, Trump said.US House speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, said he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.Here’s more on this and the day’s other key Trump administration stories:Trump and von der Leyen announce US-EU trade dealDonald Trump has announced a tariff deal with the European Union to end months of difficult negotiations between Washington and Brussels after meeting the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.“This is really the biggest trading partnership in the world so we should give it a shot,” the president said before the private meeting started.Von der Leyen described it as “a huge deal” that would bring “stability” and “predictability” to both sides.Read the full storyMike Johnson would have ‘great pause’ about a Ghislaine Maxwell pardonUS House speaker Mike Johnson said he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie said a pardon should be on the table for the jailed Epstein confidante if she were to give helpful information around the Epstein case.On Sunday – after deputy attorney general Todd Blanche met with Maxwell last week –Johnson was asked on NBC about the possibility of a pardon and said: “I think she should have a life sentence at least … That she orchestrated it and was a big part of it, at least under the criminal sanction, I think is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that, as any reasonable person would.”Read the full storyTop medical body concerned at RFK Jr’s reported plans to cut preventive health panelA top US medical body has expressed “deep concern” to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures, including cancer screenings, should be covered by insurance companies.The letter from the the American Medical Association comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kennedy plans to overhaul the 40-year old US preventive services task force because he regards it as too “woke”, according to sources.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Thai and Cambodian leaders will meet on Monday for talks to end hostilities, Thailand said, after pressure from Donald Trump to end a deadly border dispute.

      UK prime minster Keir Starmer will recall his cabinet from their summer break for an emergency meeting on the Gaza crisis this week as cross-party MPs warned his talks with Donald Trump provided a critical juncture in helping to resolve the conflict.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on26 July. More