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      US Senate votes down resolution to restrict Trump from escalating Iran war

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      Senate Democrats failed on Friday to get a war-powers resolution passed to limit Donald Trump’s ability to single-handedly escalate the war with Iran. The resolution, “to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran”, was voted down 53-47.The vote on the resolution, introduced by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, split along mainly partisan lines. One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted for it; one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against it.“Congress declares war,” Kaine said in a speech on the Senate floor. He stressed that the framers of the US constitution in 1787 were so wary of giving the power to start wars to one person that they did not even entrust it to George Washington, the first commander-in-chief.“They decided that war was too big a decision for one person,” Kaine said. “And so they wrote a constitution that said the United States should not be at war without a vote of Congress.”The measure would have compelled Trump to seek authorization from Congress before taking any further military action.Trump ordered airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on 22 June. This directly followed Israel launching attacks on Iran, and Iran retaliating. Trump said that the US bombardment “totally obliterated” key nuclear enrichment facilities and deemed the mission a success, although some initial reports said the damage was minimal. Iran condemned the attacks.Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had halted its nuclear ambitions after the bombings. But, he said, he would “absolutely” continue to attack the country’s nuclear sites if he believed it was once again enriching uranium.“Time will tell,” Trump said at the White House. “But I don’t believe that they’re going to go back into nuclear anytime soon.”Later on Friday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, rebuked Trump on social media. “If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers”, Araghchi wrote on X.“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had NO CHOICE but to RUN to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults”, Iran’s top diplomat added, in something approximating Trump’s own social media style. “If Illusions lead to worse mistakes, Iran will not hesitate to unveil its Real Capabilities, which will certainly END any Delusion about the Power of Iran.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: president boasts of ‘monumental’ win after supreme court curtails power of federal judges

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      Donald Trump has hailed a supreme court decision to limit federal judges’ powers to block his orders on a nationwide basis as a “monumental victory” and vowed to “promptly file to proceed” with key policies – including banning birthright citizenship.The supreme court ruling on Friday, written by the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Trump’s policy seeking a ban on birthright citizenship go into effect immediately and did not address the policy’s legality.Trump celebrated the ruling as vindication of his broader agenda to roll back judicial constraints on executive power. “Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” Trump said from the White House press briefing room. “It wasn’t meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation.”US attorney general Pam Bondi said the birthright citizenship question would “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October.Here is more on this and other key US politics stories from today:US supreme court limits federal judges’ power to block Trump ordersThe US supreme court has supported Donald Trump’s attempt to limit district judges’ power to block his orders on a nationwide basis, in an emergency appeal related to the birthright citizenship case but with wide implications for the executive branch’s power. The court’s opinion on the constitutionality of whether some American-born children can be deprived of citizenship remains undecided and the fate of the US president’s order to overturn birthright citizenship rights was left unclear.Read the full storyTrump says he is ending Canada trade talks amid tech tax disputeThe president has announced he is ending trade talks with Canada, one of the US’s largest trading partners, accusing it of imposing unfair taxes on US technology companies in a “direct and blatant attack on our country”.The news came hours after the US had announced a breakthrough in talks with China over rare-earth shipments into America, and announcements from top officials that the US would continue trade negotiations beyond a 9 July deadline set by Trump.Read the full storyUS supreme court rules key part of Obamacare constitutionalThe US supreme court has ruled that a key provision of “Obamacare”, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, is constitutional. The case challenged how members of an obscure but vital healthcare committee are appointed.Read the full storyUS says Haitians can be deportedMore than half a million Haitians are facing the prospect of deportation from the US after the Trump administration announced that the Caribbean country’s citizens would no longer be afforded shelter under a government program created to protect the victims of major natural disasters or conflicts.Read the full storyMother arrested at LA court alongside six-year-old son with cancer sues IceA Honduran woman who sought asylum in the US is suing the Trump administration after immigration agents arrested her and her children, including her six-year-old son, who was diagnosed with leukemia, at a Los Angeles immigration court.Read the full storyGavin Newsom sues Fox News for defamation and demands $787mThe governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has sued Fox News for defamation and demanded $787m, almost exactly the same amount Fox paid in a previous defamation case over election misinformation.In the new lawsuit, filed on Friday, Newsom accuses the Fox host Jesse Watters of falsely claiming Newsom lied about a phone call with Donald Trump, who recently ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles.Read the full storyHegseth gives new name to navy ship named after Harvey MilkThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has formally announced that the US navy supply vessel named in honor of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk is to be renamed after Oscar V Peterson, a chief petty officer who received the congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the battle of the Coral Sea in the second world war.Read the full storyEx-Doge employee ‘Big Balls’ gets new job with TrumpEdward Coristine – a 19-year-old who quit Elon Musk’s controversial so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) earlier this week, where he gained notoriety in part for having used the online moniker “Big Balls” – has in fact been given a new government job, this time at the Social Security Administration.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US supreme court ruled that a Texas law requiring that pornography websites verify the ages of their visitors was constitutional on Friday, the latest development in a global debate over how to prevent minors from accessing adult material online.

      In a bizarre start to a Rwanda-DRC peace agreement event at the White House, Donald Trump brought on an Angolan correspondent so she would praise him in front of the assembled officials and reporters. Hariana Veras praised Trump for his work on the peace agreement and said African presidents have told her he should be nominated for a Nobel peace prize.

      The president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, has resigned from his position after coming under pressure from the Trump administration over diversity efforts.

      Harvard University and the University of Toronto and have announced a plan that would see some Harvard students complete their studies in Canada if visa restrictions prevent them from entering the US.

      Environmental groups, immigration rights activists and a Native American tribe have decried the construction of a harsh outdoor migrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades billed by state officials as “Alligator Alcatraz”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 26 June 2025. More

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      California legislature acts to keep film and TV production at home

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      Hollywood’s home state of California will more than double annual tax incentives for film and television production to $750m under a measure passed by the Democratic-led legislature on Friday.The increase from the current $330m was approved as part of a broader tax bill that is expected to be signed into law by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Newsom has advocated for the boost, a step to help reverse a years-long exodus of production from California to places such as Britain, Canada and other US states that offer generous tax credits and rebates.Producers, directors, actors and crew members have warned lawmakers that Hollywood was at risk of becoming the next Detroit, the former automaking capital devastated by overseas competition.Permitting data showed production in Los Angeles, the location of major studios including Walt Disney and Netflix, fell to the second-lowest level on record in 2024. California has lost more than 17,000 jobs since 2022 from its declining share of the entertainment industry, according to union estimates.Producer Uri Singer said he shot three films in New York to take advantage of its tax incentives. He received a California tax credit to shoot his current project, a horror flick called Corporate Retreat, in Los Angeles.“You can get such good cast and crew that are available that makes shooting in LA financially better,” he said. “Besides that, creatively you find here anyone you want, and if you need another crane, within an hour you have a crane.“Plus, “the crew is happy because they go home every day,” Singer added.“The Entertainment Union Coalition applauds today’s announcement,” said Rebecca Rhine, the president of a coalition of unions and guilds that represent writers, musicians, directors and other film professionals, in a statement. “The expanded funding of our program is an important reminder of the strength and resiliency of our members, the power of our broad-based union and guild coalition, and the role our industry plays in supporting our state’s economy.”“It’s now time to get people back to work and bring production home to California,” Rhine added. “We call on the studios to recommit to the communities and workers across the state that built this industry and built their companies.”Local advocates applauded California’s expansion of tax incentives, though they said more needs to be done.Writer Alexandra Pechman, an organizer of a Stay in LA campaign by Hollywood workers, called on traditional studios and expanding internet platforms to commit to a specific amount of spending in California to support creative workers.“It’s time for the studios and streamers to do their part to turn this win into real change for all of us,” Pechman said.Industry supporters also are pushing for federal tax incentives to keep filming in the United States.Donald Trump claimed in May that he had authorized government agencies to impose a 100% tariff on movies produced overseas. The movie tariff has not been implemented. More

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      California leaders approve budget to close $12bn deficit in blow to progressive causes

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      California lawmakers on Friday approved a budget that pares back a number of progressive priorities, including a landmark healthcare expansion for low-income adult immigrants without legal status, to close a $12bn deficit.It is the third year in a row the nation’s most populous state has been forced to slash funding or stop some of the programs championed by Democratic leaders. This year’s $321bn spending plan was negotiated by legislative leaders and the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.Newsom is expected to sign the budget. But it will be void if lawmakers don’t send him legislation to make it easier to build housing by Monday.The budget avoids some of the most devastating cuts to essential safety net programs, state leaders said. They mostly relied on using state savings, borrowing from special funds and delaying payments to plug the budget hole.California also faces potential federal cuts to healthcare programs and broad economic uncertainty that could force even deeper cuts. Newsom in May estimated that federal policies – including on tariffs and immigration enforcement – could reduce state tax revenue by $16bn.“We’ve had to make some tough decisions,” Mike McGuire, the senate president pro tempore, said on Friday. “I know we’re not going to please everyone, but we’re doing this without any new taxes on everyday Californians.”Republican lawmakers said they were left out of budget negotiations. They also criticized Democrats for not doing enough to address future deficits, which could range between $17bn to $24bn annually.“We’re increasing borrowing, we’re taking away from the rainy day fund, and we’re not reducing our spending,” said Tony Strickland, a Republican state senator, before the vote. “And this budget also does nothing about affordability in California.”Here’s a look at spending in key areas:Under the budget deal, California will stop enrolling new adult patients without legal status in its state-funded healthcare program for low-income people starting in 2026. The state will also implement a $30 monthly premium in July 2027 for immigrants remaining on the program, including some with legal status. The premiums would apply to adults under 60 years old.The changes to the program, known as Medi-Cal, are a scaled-back version of Newsom’s proposal in May. Still, it is a major blow to an ambitious program started last year to help the state inch closer to a goal of universal healthcare.A Democratic state senator, María Elena Durazo, broke with her party and voted “no” on the healthcare changes, calling them a betrayal of immigrant communities.The deal also removes $78m in funding for mental health phone lines, including a program that served 100,000 people annually. It will eliminate funding that helps pay for dental services for low-income people in 2026 and delay implementation of legislation requiring health insurance to cover fertility services by six months to 2026.But lawmakers also successfully pushed back on several proposed cuts from Newsom that they called “draconian”.The deal secures funding for a program providing in-home domestic and personal care services for some low-income residents and Californians with disabilities. It also avoids cuts to Planned Parenthood.Lawmakers agreed to let the state tap $1bn from its cap-and-trade program to fund state firefighting efforts. The cap-and-trade program is a market-based system aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Companies have to buy credits to pollute, and that money goes into a fund lawmakers are supposed to tap for climate-related spending.Newsom wanted to reauthorize the program through 2045, with a guarantee that $1bn would annually go to the state’s long-delayed high-speed rail project. The budget does not make that commitment, as lawmakers wanted to hash out spending plans outside of the budget process. The rail project currently receives 25% of the cap-and-trade proceeds, which is roughly $1bn annually depending on the year.Legislative leaders also approved funding to help transition part-time firefighters into full-time positions. Many state firefighters only work nine months each year, which lawmakers said harms the state’s ability to prevent and fight wildfires. The deal includes $10m to increase the daily wage for incarcerated firefighters, who earn $5.80 to $10.24 a day currently.The budget agreement will provide $80m to help implement a tough-on-crime initiative voters overwhelmingly approved last year. The measure makes shoplifting a felony for repeat offenders, increases penalties for some drug charges and gives judges the authority to order people with multiple drug charges into treatment.Most of the fund, $50m, will help counties build more behavioral health beds. Probation officers will get $15m for pre-trial services and courts will receive $20m to support increased caseloads.Advocates of the measure – including sheriffs, district attorneys and probation officers – said that was not enough money. Some have estimated it would take about $400m for the first year of the program.Newsom and lawmakers agreed to raise the state’s film tax credit from $330m to $750m annually to boost Hollywood. The program, a priority for Newsom, will start this year and expire in 2030.The budget provides $10m to help support immigration legal services, including deportation defense.But cities and counties will not see new funding to help them address homelessness next year, which local leaders said could lead to the loss of thousands of shelter beds.The budget also does not act on Newsom’s proposal to streamline a project to create a vast underground tunnel to reroute a big part of the state’s water supply. More

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      Trump brings on Angolan journalist to praise him at White House event to mark Rwanda-DRC peace agreement – live

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      Donald Trump hosted top diplomats from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the signing of a peace agreement between the two countries on Friday. The African nations have been in a conflict since 2021 that has led to the deaths and displacement of thousands.While Trump called the peace agreement “a glorious triumph”, the war reportedly shows little signs of abating on the ground, according to a report by NBC earlier this month.Trump has touted the US’s role as a peacemaker and said the agreement today was ushered through by Massad Boulos, a senior adviser for Africa for the State Department and the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany Trump. The president said on Friday that the US stands to get “a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo” for its efforts.The event, which took place at the White House, kicked off with an unusual start. Trump asked Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary, to introduce a friend. Leavitt said she knew a reporter from the “continent of Africa”, who had a “story to share”. Trump then invited the reporter to stand next him, saying “Why don’t you come up here and talk, so they can see.”The reporter is Hariana Veras, who works for the national broadcaster of Angola. Veras praised Trump for his work on the peace agreement and said that African presidents have told her he should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.When Veras was done speaking, Trump told her that Leavitt had said she was beautiful. He then added: “You are beautiful … I wish I had more reporters like you”.Immediately after, the White House clipped a video of Veras’s comments and posted it to its social media account on X.Federal agents appear to have blasted their way into a residential home in Huntington Park, California. A video released by the local NBC news station, shows what appear to be border patrol agents setting up an explosive device near the house and then detonating it – causing a window to be shattered. Then around a dozen agents charged toward the home.Jenny Ramirez, who lives in the house with her one-year-old and six-year-old kids, told NBC through tears that it was one of the loudest explosions she heard in her life.“I told them, ‘you guys didn’t have to do this, you scared by son, my baby,’” Ramirez said.Ramirez said she and her children are all US citizens. Apparently, the agents were searching for Ramirez’s boyfriend who was reportedly involved in a car crash with a truck carrying federal agents last week. He also lives in the home and is a US citizen, according to NBC.

      Donald Trump has abruptly cut off trade talks with Canada over its new digital services tax coming into effect on Monday that will impact US technology firms and said that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.

      Trump said he had not ruled out attacking Iran again and said he has abandoned plans to drop sanctions on Tehran.

      The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.

      Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “a travesty for the rule of law” and “an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution” in a scathing dissent.

      Trump called the ruling “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”. He said his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide. One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.

      US attorney general Pam Bondi said the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October but said today’s ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, which the administration is “thrilled” about.

      United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said that the US-backed Israeli aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe”, giving a blunt and grave assessment: “It’s killing people.” Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled”, aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.

      Guterres’s intervention followed calls earlier today from Médecins Sans Frontières for the scheme to be immediately dismantled and for Israel to end its siege on Gaza, calling the Israeli-US food distribution scheme “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”. Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading toward desperately needed food, killing hundreds of starving Palestinian people in recent weeks. The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.

      The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge yesterday. It is not clear when the deportation might occur or whether it would happen before the criminal case accusing him of smuggling migrants into the United States is complete. The justice department said there are no “imminent plans” to remove Ábrego García from the United States.

      The supreme court ruled in favor of Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland who sued to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read in a landmark case involving the intersection of religion and LGBT rights. The justices in a 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s refusal to require Montgomery County’s public schools to provide an option to opt out of these classes. Our story is here.

      The supreme court also ruled against challengers to a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users in an effort to protect minors after the adult entertainment industry argued that the measure violates the free speech rights of adults. Story here.

      The supreme court also preserved a key element of the Obamacare law that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost to patients. Read more here.
      As well as abruptly cutting off trade talks with Canada over its new tax that will impact US technology firms, Trump said that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,” he wrote on Truth Social.The move plunges US relations with its second-largest trading partner back into chaos after a period of relative calm – only last week Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said he had agreed with Trump that their two nations should try to wrap up a new economic and security deal within 30 days.Canada is the US’s second-largest trading partner after Mexico, buying $349.4bn of US goods last year and exporting $412.7bn to the US, according to US Census Bureau data.In Trump’s surprise announcement that he was terminating trade talks with Canada, he accused Ottawa of “copying the European Union” with an “egregious” digital services tax on US tech firms.He wrote on Truth Social: “They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”We’ve yet to hear Canadian PM Mark Carney’s reaction to Trump’s outburst, which imperils a trading relationship that, according to the office of the US trade representative, totalled about $762bn last year.The tax, which will take effect on 30 June and be applied retroactively from 2022, will impact both domestic and international companies, meaning American giants Amazon, Google, Meta, Airbnb and Uber will have to start payments from Monday.Last week Ottawa refused to delay the tax in the face of mounting pressure and opposition from the Trump administration during trade negotiations.At the press conference earlier, Donald Trump sharply criticized Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, dropped plans to lift sanctions on Iran and said he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran is enriching uranium to worrisome levels.Trump reacted sternly to Khamenei’s first remarks after a 12-day conflict with Israel that ended when the US launched strikes last weekend against Iranian nuclear sites.Khamenei said Iran “slapped America in the face” by launching a – largely symbolic and forewarned – attack against a major US base in Qatar following last weekend’s US bombing raid. He also said Iran would never surrender.Trump said he had spared Khamenei’s life. US officials told Reuters on 15 June that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader. In a Truth Social post, he said:
      His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life. I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH.
      Trump also said that in recent days he had been working on the possible removal of sanctions on Iran to give it a chance for a speedy recovery. He told reporters today he has now abandoned that effort.
      I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.
      Trump said he did not rule out attacking Iran again. When asked about the possibility of new bombing of Iranian nuclear sites if deemed necessary at some point, he replied:
      Sure, without question, absolutely.
      Trump’s border czar Tom Homan spoke at the end of the morning session at the Faith & Freedom Conference in Washington DC to applause and a standing ovation as he called for the prosecution of anyone who impeded his immigration enforcement, including lawmakers.Homan opened up by describing immigration enforcement as a moral duty – meant to stop the deaths, sexual assault and drug trafficking at the border. “In my 40 years I’ve seen a lot of terrible things,” he said. “Secure the border, save lives.”In a wide ranging, off the cuff speech, Homan touted his deportation figures and the lack of crossings at the border while defending Ice raids against non-criminals. “They’re in the country illegally so they’re on the table too,” he said. He attributed some of those arrests to sanctuary cities, where he said the lack of ability to arrest undocumented people in jail led to the increase of collateral arrests when Ice searched for them on the streets.Homan poked at protests, calling the Los Angeles protests misguided and misinformed and applauding Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard. He also called the protestors in his lake house town “morons” – those protests were followed by Ice releasing a family.Homan spent a good amount of his speech denouncing Biden’s policies and calling for the prosecution of anyone, including lawmakers who attempted to intervene with Ice enforcement. He said Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security under Joe Biden, should “go to jail”.
      You can hate Ice, you can hate me, I don’t give a shit. You can not agree with our priorities, but you better not cross that line.
      At the en,d Homan turned to his personal relationship with Trump, saying he respected the president as much as he does his own father.Lawyers for Kilmar Ábrego García have asked the judge to keep him in jail over deportation concerns. Prosecutors have agreed with a request by Ábrego García’s lawyers to delay his Tennessee jail release.Ábrego García’s lawyers asked a judge for the delay Friday because of “contradictory statements” by the Trump administration over whether he’ll be deported upon release. A judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Ábrego García to await trial on human smuggling charges. The judge has been holding off over concerns immigration officials would try to deport him.The justice department says it intends to try Ábrego García on the smuggling charges. A justice department attorney said earlier there were plans to deport him but didn’t say when. The Maryland construction worker previously was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.US representative Nydia Velázquez from New York called the supreme court ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions “an attack on the very foundation of our nation”. She wrote on X:“The Supreme Court just opened the door for Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship. As Justice Sotomayor warned in her dissent, ‘No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.’ This ruling is an attack on the very foundation of our nation.”Representative Mark Takano of California expressed similar alarm. He wrote on X:“Today’s troubling ruling by the Supreme Court means that Trump’s un-Constitutional executive order denying many Americans their birthright citizenship will go into effect for anyone without the means to file a lawsuit to protect themselves.”Trump has accused Canada of a “direct and blatant attack” on the US after being informed that the country plans to tax US technology companies. Trump says the US will be “terminating all discussions on trade with Canada” as a result.Trump wrote on Truth Social:“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country.They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”Environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit to block the “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades.The lawsuit, filed Friday on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades organization, seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court says there is also supposed to be an opportunity for public comment.Florida governor Ron DeSantis said Friday on Fox and Friends that the detention center is set to begin processing people who entered the US illegally as soon as next week.The Trump administration is moving to terminate Temporary Protected Status for half a million Haitians, claiming that Haiti is a “safe” country to return to, despite the reality that large portions of the country have been overcome by gangs and civil governance has collapsed.The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that conditions in Haiti have improved, and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for Temporary Protected Status, which grants deportation protections and work permits to people from countries experiencing turmoil.“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”

      The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, appears to have delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.

      Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the supreme court’s majority decision “a travesty for the rule of law”, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered a scathing dissent.

      Trump called the supreme court’s decision “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”.

      Trump said his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide. One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.

      In a press briefing US attorney general Pam Bondi was asked whether the administration is going to try to implement Trump’s order banning birthright citizenship in states where there isn’t a legal challenge. Bondi said the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October but that Friday’s ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, adding that the administration is “thrilled” about this.

      Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo reportedly plans to run as an independent candidate in New York City’s mayoral race, days after finding himself bested in the Democratic primary by progressive insurgent candidate Zohran Mamdani.

      The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but reportedly does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March.

      Trump reiterated that Tehran wants to meet following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend, but gave no further details. More

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      Trump basks in triumph as supreme court kicks away another guard rail

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      He strode into the White House briefing room feeling invincible. In his own telling, he had fixed the Middle East. He had made Nato pay up. He had pacified the heart of Africa. And now Napoleon Trump had once again just been crowned emperor by the US supreme court.“We’ve had a big week,” Donald Trump, orange hair shimmering, blue tie drooping below the waist, mused from a lectern anointed with the presidential seal. “We’ve had a lot of victories this week.”The highest court had just handed the president another win by curbing the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding his policies – though it left unresolved the issue of whether he can limit birthright citizenship.Unable to contain his glee, Trump came to talk to the press – something his predecessor Joe Biden rarely did – to goad the “fake news” while basking in glory from the Maga-friendly media.The president hailed the court’s decision as a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law” and gloated – with some hyperbole – that “there are people elated all over the country”. He looked forward to taking aim at targets such as birthright citizenship, sanctuary city funding and refugee resettlement.In the abstract, there is a reasonable debate to be had over how much power the judiciary should have to curb an elected leader’s agenda. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, has described it as a “bipartisan problem” that has plagued five different presidents. A decade ago Barack Obama expressed frustration when a district court temporarily blocked his executive actions on immigration.In the court’s majority opinion, the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s contention that they were neglecting their duty to protect the people from government overreach. “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” Barrett wrote.But context is everything. Trump has marginalised Congress, sued the media in an effort to chill free speech, assailed cultural institutions and universities and deployed the military against peaceful protesters. The courts have been leading the way in safeguarding democracy from his authoritarian impulses. Now they too are on the ropes.Asked by a reporter if the supreme court decision concentrates too much power in the White House, Trump insisted: “The question is fine but it’s the opposite. The constitution has been brought back.”Yet the supreme court that decided to make the strongman even stronger contains three Trump appointees and last year found that former presidents have presumptive immunity from prosecution for “official acts” – in effect putting Trump above the law. The four criminal investigations that once dogged him now feel like ancient history.View image in fullscreenTrump was asked a question by a reporter from LindellTV, a news organisation founded by Mike Lindell, a conspiracy theorist and founder of MyPillow, about whether he would like to see a justice department investigation of the judges whose rulings allowed the cases to proceed against him while he was out of office.“I love you,” Trump said in response to the question, adding: “I hope so.”It has been exactly 12 months since he debated with Biden and discovered an opponent in chronic decline. Democrats panicked and imploded, Trump survived an assassination attempt and rode his good fortune all the way to the White House.It is small wonder that the 79-year-old now considers himself untouchable, acting with impunity at home and abroad, holding freewheeling press conferences like Friday’s without fear of consequences.“Illegal crossings at the border are at zero now,” a reporter said.Trump interjected: “Zero! Does everyone hear that?”A cameraman in the briefing room shouted: “Trump 2028!”Later Trump reiterated his claim that Iran’s nuclear sites had been obliterated and lamented: “We had some fake news for a little while – the same people that covered the Hunter Biden laptop was from Russia … I don’t believe that they’re going to go back into nuclear anytime soon.”He also used the briefing to take a swipe at Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, for not lowering interest rates. “We have a man who’s not a smart man, and he probably has Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Later on Friday the White House would host leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace deal to end years of fighting. Trump cheerfully admitted: “I’m a little bit out of my league in that one because I didn’t know too much about it.” He also noted that the US would gain access to critical minerals in the region.Trump even ruminated on threats to his life, including proxy groups from Iran that may issue threats, and referenced the bullet that struck his ear last summer in an attempted assassination. He gets “that throbbing feeling every once in a while”, he said.“What I do is a dangerous business. You know, I tell the story of the car companies and different people in different professions. You have race car drivers, as an example, one-tenth of 1% die. Bull riders, one-tenth of 1%. That’s not a lot, but people die. When you’re president, it’s about 5%. If somebody would have told me that, maybe I wouldn’t have run. This is a very different profession.”As raised hands in the room clamoured for attention his political lizard brain spotted an opportunity to bash his predecessor. “This is the opposite of Biden. Biden would take a half a question and he’d leave without answering it … You tell me when it gets boring, OK?” More

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      University of Virginia president resigns under pressure from White House over DEI programs

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      The president of the University of Virginia (UVA) has resigned from his position after coming under pressure from the Trump administration over diversity efforts.James Ryan was facing political pressure from Washington to step aside in order to resolve a justice department investigation into UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing three people briefed on the matter.Ryan had a reputation for trying to make the UVA campus more diverse and encouraging students to perform community service.“I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job,” Ryan said in a message to the university reviewed by the Guardian.He added: “To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.“This was an excruciatingly difficult decision, and I am heartbroken to be leaving this way.”The apparent campaign against a prominent public sector university in the US follows Donald Trump’s agenda since returning to the White House to cancel programs and policies aimed at greater diversity, equity and inclusion in government, workplaces, and various establishments and organizations across American society.In parallel, the US president set about attacking and taking funds from elite private sector universities, with Harvard at the forefront, in an assault on the academic and research independence of higher education more broadly.The New York Times first reported late on Thursday that the justice department had demanded that Ryan step down as part of an agreement to settle a civil rights investigation into the school’s diversity practices, as Trump further erodes the government agency’s distance from the White House by enlisting its investigative powers as part of his political agenda.Ryan said in a letter, briefed to the Times by a source, that he was going to step down next year but “given the circumstances and today’s conversations” he had decided “with deep sadness” to resign now.The justice department had reportedly told UVA that the government thought it was prioritizing race-based factors during its admissions process and other aspects of student life in a way that constitutes “widespread practices throughout every component and facet of the institution”.Ryan’s removal is another example of the Trump administration using “thuggery instead of rational discourse,” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents university presidents, told the Associated Press.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is a dark day for the University of Virginia, a dark day for higher education, and it promises more of the same,” Mitchell said. “It’s clear the administration is not done and will use every tool that it can make or invent to exert its will over higher education.”In a joint statement, Virginia’s Democratic senators said it was outrageous that the Trump administration would demand Ryan’s resignation over “‘culture war’ traps.” “This is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future,” Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said.UVA is located in Charlottesville, and found itself in the global headlines early on in the first Trump administration when, in August 2017, hundreds of far-right demonstrators wielding torches and shouting racist slogans marched on to the historic campus ahead of a so-called Unite the Right rally in the small city, crowding towards a smaller group of counterprotesters.The subsequent rally, to try to prevent the removal of Confederate statues from a park, was massive and became very violent as neo-Nazi groups gathered and attacked counterprotesters, then later a white supremacist drove a car into such a group and killed a woman.Trump sparked uproar by blaming both sides for the violence, on the one hand and, on the other, saying: “You had people that were very fine people on both sides.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Liberal supreme court justices’ dissents reveal concerns that the US faces a crisis

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      On Friday the conservative-dominated US supreme court handed down a series of important judgments on issues ranging from the power of the judiciary to religious rights in schools. Media attention generally focused on the wording of the rulings and their impact.But the court’s liberal minority of just three justices penned dissenting opinions that were similarly potent, revealing the sharp divisions on America’s top legal body and also showed their deep concern at the declining health of American civic society and the authoritarian bent of the Trump presidency.Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered an acidic sermon against the court’s 6-3 decision to end lower courts’ practice of issuing nationwide injunctions to block federal executive orders, reading her dissent directly from the bench in a move meant to highlight its importance.The decision is seen as limiting the power of judges to halt or slow presidential orders, even those whose constitutionality has not yet been tested, such as Trump’s attempt to remove the right to automatic US citizenship for anyone born inside US borders.“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,” states Sotomayor’s dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown-Jackson. “Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”As opinion season ends in the first months of Donald Trump’s second presidency, the court’s decisions have expanded the power of the presidency and limited the power of lower courts to block Trump’s agenda.The opinion in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v Casa Inc, in which the court was silent on the underlying question about the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order, nonetheless undermines the rule of law, Sotomayor said.Even though defending the order’s legality is “an impossible task” given the plain language of the 14th amendment, the court’s opinion means each person must challenge the order individually in states that are not a party to the suit, unless class-action status is granted.In a concurring dissent, Jackson explained the burden it places on people to defend their rights in court.“Today’s ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected,” Jackson’s dissent states. “This perverse burden shifting cannot coexist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law.”Jackson added ominously, the ruling was an “existential threat to the rule of law”.Reading from the bench has historically been an uncommon act meant to emphasize profound disapproval of a justice to a ruling. The court’s liberal wing has made it less rare lately, inveighing against profound legal changes wrought by the court’s six-judge conservative bloc.Other decisions handed down on Friday also permit parents to opt their children out of classroom activities that depict LGBTQ+ characters in books (Mahmood v Taylor), and allow states to require age verification on pornographic web sites (Free Speech Coalition Inc, v Paxton), both decided on ideological lines.Age verification has already begun to drive porn website operators out of Texas, given a cost estimated at $40,000 for every 100,000 verifications, Kagan noted in her acerbic dissent.The Texas law creates a barrier between adults and first amendment-protected content that previous supreme court decisions on speech would not have permitted, she noted. Providing ID online is fundamentally different than flashing a driver’s license at a bar.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It is turning over information about yourself and your viewing habits – respecting speech many find repulsive – to a website operator, and then to … who knows?” she wrote. “The operator might sell the information; the operator might be hacked or subpoenaed.”The ruling granting a religious exemption will have a chilling effect on schools, which may strip classroom material of any reference to LGBTQ+ content rather than risk costly litigation, Sotomayor wrote in dissent.Her dissent highlights the deliberate work done by the Montgomery county school board to create an inclusive curriculum, adding “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” to its library in 2022. The children’s book, one of five with LGBTQ+ characters, describes a same-sex couple’s wedding announcement and plans.“Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” she wrote. “The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards.”In three of the five decisions handed down on Friday, that conservative bloc had the majority. But in two cases the conservative bloc split: Kennedy v Braidwood Management, which reversed lower court rulings that declared an appointed board overseeing preventive care under the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, and FCC v Consumers’ Research, which upheld the constitutionality of fees collected for a rural broadband program.Each of these cases split conservatives between those who support more expansive executive power – Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett – and others at war with the administrative state: Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas.But collectively, conservatives on the court have continued to upend longstanding precedent, while weakening the legal avenues of challengers to use the courts to defend their rights, the court’s remaining liberal justices lament.“The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other. It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival,” Sotomayor wrote in dissent on the birthright citizenship case. “Today, the Court abdicates its vital role in that effort.” More