US news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 200 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      A report tied Iowa’s water pollution to agriculture. Then the money to promote it mysteriously disappeared

      by

      When a team of scientists embarked two years ago on a $1m landmark study of Iowa’s persistent water-quality problems, they knew that the findings would be important to share. High cancer rates amid the state’s inability to stem the tide of pollutants flowing into rivers and lakes was a growing public concern.But now, after the completed study pointed to agricultural pollution as a significant source of the key US farm state’s water problems, public officials have quietly stripped funding from plans to promote the study findings, according to sources involved in the project.The report, the results of two years of data analysis, has been highly controversial in Iowa because of the large amount of evidence it cites linking water pollution – and resulting human and environmental health risks – to the state’s economically and politically powerful farm industry.Supporters of the report said the agricultural industry and allied public officials have tried to downplay the findings for months, and they fear this move is another impediment to change.‘Zeroed out’When the report was finalized earlier this year, there was a little more than $400,000 left in the budget, with some of that money earmarked for communications and “public awareness” work, travel and other costs associated with promoting the findings, records show.Jennifer Terry, the project lead on the water report, had planned in-person meetings with scientists and community groups to focus on recommendations made in the report.But those funds were recently “zeroed out” with no explanation, according to email communications.Funding for the water report and related public outreach came from Polk county, Iowa’s most populous county and home to the state capital city of Des Moines. County leadership has changed since the report was commissioned.“The intent was that at the conclusion of the report to make sure it was seen widely in a public education effort,” said former Polk county administrator John Norris, who led support for the water report in 2023. “That was a big part of the value of it – that the public learns from it.”Norris, who agreed to leave office earlier this year as part of a legal settlement with the county, said he hoped the county would use some of the money in some way for water-quality work.Frank Marasco, who replaced Norris, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Polk county spokesperson Jon Cahill. Terry also declined to comment.The water report, authored by a team of 16 scientists, focuses on pollution patterns in two “essential” rivers fed from a watershed running from southern Minnesota through the central part of Iowa to Des Moines. The rivers are the primary source of drinking water for roughly 600,000 people and considered important recreational state assets, but they’re commonly laden with harmful contaminants that include phosphorus and nitrogen, bacteria from animal and human waste, pesticides and other chemicals.This summer, nitrate levels in key drinking-water sources were measured in quantities far higher than is allowed under federal safety standards.Much, though not all, of the contamination is tied to agriculture, according to the report. Among multiple recommendations, the report calls for the top US corn-growing state to diversify into production of crops that require fewer chemical inputs, and for limits on the density of livestock.The water report comes alongside growing concerns about the prevalence of cancer across the state. For the last few years, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of cancer in the nation, and is one of only two US states where cancer is increasing. Pesticides and nitrates both are scientifically shown to cause cancers.Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs at the Iowa Environmental Council, said all allocated funds should be fully utilized to educate the public.“People in Polk county and across the state are facing a water crisis but we cannot begin to make progress until all Iowans, including decision-makers, understand the urgency of this moment,” she said.“The importance of accessible, transparent public education and awareness cannot be understated,” Johannsen added. “The current resources available for addressing our water issues are a drop in the bucket, and our elected officials have a responsibility to do everything they can to find a way forward for the sake of the health of the people of this state.”Feds add to worriesThe issues over how to address water-quality problems in Iowa, which has nearly 87,000 farms and ranks first in the nation for corn, pork and egg production, comes as the Trump administration and Republican allies in Congress are moving to dismantle regulations aimed at protecting water quality, including those that work to limit discharges of pesticides and other farm-related chemicals into waterways.One chief concern for environmental advocates is the Permit Act, which is actually a package of more than a dozen bills that would streamline permitting requirements. The legislation would cut protections for many waterways, limit requirements for updated pollution-control measures and exempt pesticide spraying and agricultural runoff from permitting and accountability, according to the advocacy group Beyond Pesticides.If the measures become law, it will make it that much harder for Iowans to clean up their waterways.In another blow to efforts to address the state’s water-quality problems, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reversed a decision made under the Biden administration that found additional areas of four Iowa rivers should be designated as impaired.When waters are classified as impaired, it triggers stricter regulatory measures to limit pollutants entering the waterways and other enhanced measures aimed at reducing the inflow of harmful contaminants.The reversal angered environmental groups across the state as well as the utility providers tasked with cleaning up the water. But farm groups, including the Iowa Farm Bureau, which had opposed the impairment designations, cheered the news.News of the reversal broke the same week that the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, visited Iowa to meet with farmers and others and attend the Iowa state fair to serve as a grill master at the Iowa Pork Producers Association tent.When asked what drove the decision to reverse the impairment decision, an EPA spokesperson said only that the agency had been tracking the levels of nitrates this spring and summer in the waterways and is “ensuring that all of the information and data collected by the cities, universities, and other groups is provided to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for evaluation”.The agency is “not currently aware” of any “exceedances” of nitrates at public water systems “using surface waterbodies in Iowa”, the spokesperson said. The agency is working with state officials to “understand and resolve the issues forming the basis for EPA’s reconsideration of its 2024 decision”.Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition policy at the Harkin Institute at Drake University, said the recent events are disheartening.“I think it shows just how far we still have left to go,” Shriver said. “The farm bureau opposed the initial impairment designation and was taking a victory lap with the recent EPA announcement. As long as they continue to get whatever they want from every level of government while other stakeholders are ignored, public health is going to suffer.”This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Here’s what to know about the court ruling striking down Trump’s tariffs

      by

      Donald Trump suffered the biggest defeat yet to his tariff policies on Friday, as a federal appeals court ruled he had overstepped his presidential powers when he enacted punitive financial measures against almost every country in the world.In a 7-4 ruling, the Washington DC court said that while US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency”, none of those actions allow for the imposition of tariffs or taxes.It means the ultimate ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs, which were famously based on spurious economic science and rocked the global economy when he announced them in April, will probably be made by the US supreme court.Here’s what to know.Which tariffs did the court knock down?The decision centers on the tariffs Trump introduced on 2 April, on what he called “liberation day”. The tariffs set a 10% baseline on virtually all of the US’s trading partners and so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on countries he argued have unfairly treated the US. Lesotho, a country of 2.3 million people in southern Africa, was hit with a 50% tariff, while Trump also announced a tariff of 10% on a group of uninhabited islands populated by penguins.The ruling voided all those tariffs, with the judges finding the president’s measures “unbounded in scope, amount and duration”. They said the tariffs “assert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations” of the law his administration used to pass them.Tariffs typically need to be approved by Congress, but Trump claimed he has the right to impose tariffs on trading partners under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which in some circumstances grants the president authority to regulate or prohibit international transactions during a national emergency.The court ruled: “It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs.”Trump invoked the same law in February to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, claiming that the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs across the US border amounted to a national emergency, and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.Are the tariffs gone now?No. The court largely upheld a May decision by a federal trade court in New York that ruled Trump’s tariffs were illegal. But Friday’s ruling tossed out a part of that ruling that would have struck down the tariffs immediately.The court said the ruling would not take effect until 14 October. That allows the Trump administration time to appeal to the majority-conservative US supreme court, which will have the ultimate say on whether Trump has the legal right, as president, to upend US trade policy.What does this mean for Trump’s trade agenda?The government has argued that if Trump’s tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that it has collected, which would deliver a financial blow to the US treasury.Revenue from tariffs totaled $159bn by July, more than double what it was at the same point last year. The justice department warned in a legal filing this month that revoking the tariffs could mean “financial ruin” for the United States.The ruling could also put Trump on shaky ground in trying to impose tariffs going forward. The president does have alternative laws for imposing import tariffs, but they would limit the speed and severity with which he could act.In its decision in May, the trade court said that Trump has more limited power to impose tariffs to address trade deficits under another statute, the Trade Act of 1974. But that law restricts tariffs to 15% and to just 150 days on countries with which the United States runs big trade deficits.How has Trump respondedHe’s not happy. Trump spent Friday evening reposting dozens of social media posts that were critical of the court’s decision. In a post on his own social media site, Trump claimed, as he tends to do when judges rule against him, that the decision was made by a “highly partisan appeals court”.“If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country,” Trump wrote. He added: “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”Trump claimed “tariffs are the best tool to help our workers”, despite their costs being typically borne by everyday Americans. The tariffs have triggered economic and political uncertainty across the world and stoked fears of rising inflation. More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Racist as hell’: Trump’s cabinet is almost all white, and he keeps firing Black officials

      by

      A day after Donald Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, the White House proudly released a photo. It showed Trump, his cabinet and other officials giving a thumbs-up. Of the 24 people in the Oval Office, only one was Black.For those who have studied the US president’s long and troubling history of racism, the two events were more than mere coincidence. They were indicative of a man who has recently brought white nationalist perspectives from the margins back to the mainstream.Trump has vehemently denied that he is a racist, pointing to a modest increase in support among African American voters in last year’s election, when his opponent was a Black woman. But critics suggest that his effort to oust Cook fits a pattern of purging diverse voices from the higher ranks of leadership.“He chose to fire her out of all the governors because she’s a Black woman,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the organisation Black Voters Matter. “His goal is to get control of the Federal Reserve and for that to no longer be an autonomous, independent body. But what he does recognise is that in America everything is about race. It is as lethal as a nuclear bomb.”Cook taught economics and international relations at Michigan State University, and was previously on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She was a Marshall scholar who received degrees from Oxford University and Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta.Cook dedicated much of her scholarship to examining how racial discrimination and targeted violence created barriers to economic advancement for African Americans. She also advised the Nigerian and Rwandan governments on banking reforms and economic development.In 2022 she was confirmed to the Fed’s board of governors by the Senate in a party-line vote. Republicans argued that she was unqualified and found her research overly focused on race; Democrats brushed off such critiques as unfounded.On Monday, Trump said he fired Cook after the director of a housing regulatory agency, whom the president appointed, alleged that she committed mortgage fraud. She refused to resign and filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump has no power to remove her from office.Trump’s order aligned with his effort to expand his power across once independent parts of the federal government and broader economy and culture. It also marked another potential high-profile removal of a Black leader from the federal government amid Trump’s broader crusade against diversity and inclusion policies.Brown observed: “He knows that racism and sexism is a very effective tool to cast doubt and that’s the pathway. Lisa Cook isn’t even the chair of the board. So why would you pick her?“He picked her because he is betting that, in an industry that is probably 90% or more white male, his odds of removing her are greater than the odds for removing others from the board. That in itself is rooted in the history and how insidious racism is built into the fabric of how we see people of colour in this country.”Over the past seven months Trump has targeted other prominent Black leaders. He fired Gen Charles Q Brown Jr, chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the second Black man to serve in the position. Brown had delivered speeches about racial discrimination and issued policies that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the military.The president dismissed Carla Hayden, the first Black person to serve as librarian of Congress, after a conservative advocacy organisation accused her of being a “radical”. He ousted Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to sit on the National Labor Relations Board, which hears private-sector labour disputes.View image in fullscreenTrump’s critics argue that his life and career have given succour to white supremacists. In 1973 he and his father were sued for housing discrimination in New York; in 1989 he took out full-page ads in several newspapers calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, Black and Latino youths who were later exonerated.Trump broke through in national politics with the “birther” conspiracy theory, falsely claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the US and therefore ineligible to be president. After a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides”.He has reportedly described Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries”, has called Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu”, and, on the campaign trail last year, said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”, echoing the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.Since returning to the White House, Trump has imposed a travel ban on many of the world’s poorest countries even as the US granted refugee status to about 50 white South Africans, claiming they were victims of racial persecution and “white genocide”.He issued executive orders to curb DEI initiatives in the federal government and even sought to blame DEI for an air crash. He is seeking to purge “divisive, race-centered ideology” from Smithsonian Institution museums, suggesting that there is too much focus on “how bad Slavery was”.The attempt to fire Cook is the most dubious move yet, prompting an outcry from Democrats and civil rights groups, who pointed to her gender and race as vital factors.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCongresswoman Nanette Barragán of California posted on the X social media platform: “If you haven’t noticed yet – this is a disturbing pattern for Trump. Fire or drive out smart, competent women, in particular women of color, from high ranking positions and fill many of these positions with white men.”Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said: “Dr Cook’s credentials outshine Trump’s entire cabinet. This president simply cannot stomach Black excellence when it reveals his failures, particularly those in positions of power. In reality, this is about bending the Federal Reserve to Trump’s will, and he’s using racism as a tool to do it.”But Trump’s actions are being cheered on by white nationalists. Far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been quoted as saying that they no longer need to take to the streets to demonstrate because the president has so comprehensively adopted their talking points and embraced their agenda.Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist, observed: “When you have white supremacists who are holding key roles in government and you have leaders in this country who come and play footsie to their drumbeat they don’t have to resist because what they want is laid out for them in the form of a buffet.”Trump has been quick to point to Black allies when politically expedient, such as Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, the representative Byron Donalds of Florida and Alveda King, a niece of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But critics note there is no guarantee this will translate to policies that address racial injustice.Nor has it manifested in significant representation at the heart of government. Towards the end of the first Trump presidency, the Washington Post identified 59 people who had held cabinet positions or served in top White House jobs. Only seven were people of colour and only one – the housing secretary, Ben Carson – was Black.In his second term, Trump has picked only one Black person to serve in his cabinet: Scott Turner, the secretary of housing and urban development. Joe Biden, by contrast, appointed the most diverse cabinet in history with more women and people of colour than any that had come before.Seawright said: “We went from generational progress to generational rollback, and what this president and this administration has done in seven months could take 70 years at least to replenish. It should be a friendly reminder for all people, but particularly African Americans, that all progress is not permanent.”Trump’s cabinet includes Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience of running a major organisation, at the Pentagon; Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, at the health department; and Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, at the education department. The White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has associated with white nationalist thinkers and groups and is the architect of his hardline immigration policy.Rashad Robinson, a civil rights leader and former president of the group Color of Change, added: “We live in a very diverse country, a country with many different types of people that come from many different backgrounds, and the president exhibits his values by who he puts in office.“This is not simply that Donald Trump has put only one Black person in his cabinet. It’s that Donald Trump has gone out of his way to find some of the most unqualified and ill-equipped people to put in those jobs as a way to actually avoid having to put Black people in his cabinet.”For Brown, the voting rights activist, Trump’s cabinet picks demonstrate that he is “as racist as hell”. She added: “Quite frankly, I’m glad he doesn’t have a whole lot of Black people in his cabinet because that would be deeply embarrassing to me. Who would work in that mess?” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Duke Cunningham, Vietnam flying ace and congressman convicted of bribery, dies at 83

      by

      Randy “Duke” Cunningham, whose feats as a US navy flying ace during the Vietnam war catapulted him to a House of Representatives career that ended in disgrace when he was convicted of accepting $2.4m in bribes, has died. He was 83.Cunningham died Wednesday at a hospital in a Little Rock, Arkansas, according to former representative Duncan L Hunter, who spent time with him a week before his death.He “represented the very best of American heroes who go out to meet our enemies at the gates”, said Hunter, whose served alongside Cunningham in Congress.Cunningham was one of the most highly decorated pilots in the Vietnam war, becoming the first navy fighter ace in the war for shooting down five enemy aircraft. He received a Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, 15 Air Medals and a Purple Heart for his actions during the war.“With complete disregard for his own personal safety he continued his attack through a hail of cannon fire to rescue his wingman,” read the citation for his second Silver Star.He went on to serve eight terms in Congress before pleading guilty in 2005 to receiving illegal gifts from defense contractors in exchange for government contracts and other favors, in what was considered at the time to be the largest bribery scandal in congressional history.The Republican congressman from San Diego admitted to accepting a luxury house, a yacht, a Rolls-Royce, lavish meals and $40,000 in Persian rugs and antique furniture from companies in exchange for steering lucrative contracts their way. He was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison in March 2006.His corruption case was one of several that led to the creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics in 2008.“In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame,” Cunningham said in his resignation statement. “I cannot undo what I have done. But I can atone.”He took a less contrite tone as time went on, telling news organizations and others that he regretted his guilty plea and complaining that the Internal Revenue Service was draining his savings.“A lot of these things that they say are bribes I can absolutely black-and-white prove 100% that they were reimbursement for things that I had already paid,” Cunningham said in a phone interview with KGTV while he was in prison.In December 2012, Cunningham was released from a federal prison in Arizona to serve the remainder of his sentence in a federal halfway house in New Orleans. It was the longest prison sentence for a member of Congress for taking bribes until Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson got 13 years in 2009.His sentence also required he pay $1.8m for back taxes and forfeit an additional $1.85m for bribes he received, plus proceeds from the sale of a home in the highly exclusive San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. He was ordered to pay $1,500 a month in prison and $1,000 monthly after his release.Cunningham was born in Los Angeles on 8 December 1941, but grew up in Shelbina, Missouri, where his parents owned a five-and-dime store, according to court documents. He graduated from the University of Missouri and a few years later enlisted in the navy in 1967.He retired as a navy commander in 1987 and gained national recognition as a media commentator on military topics. When he ran for office in 1990, he replaced Democratic congressman Jim Bate in a left-leaning district who had been driven from office by charges of sexual harassment.Cunningham took an interest in military affairs while in Congress and supported socially conservative positions. He drew attention for his outbursts – during a floor debate in 1995, he attacked his adversaries as “the same ones that would put homos in the military”.“He brought military operational expertise to the debates in Congress,” said Hunter, recalling a debate he watched Cunningham have with a colleague over the fate of a fighter jet. “He was a strong conservative, strongly opinionated, and brought a real spark of light to the US Congress.”The disgraced former congressman received one of the pardons issued by Donald Trump in 2021 at the end of his first term.He has largely stayed out of the public eye since his release from prison, enjoying retirement in the countryside and serving as the president of the American Fighter Aces Association, according to Hunter.He is survived by his wife, Sharon Cunningham, his adult son and two daughters, and other family members. His family could not be immediately reached for comment. More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: court ruling threatens to upend Trump’s tariffs; Kamala’s security detail revoked

      by

      A US federal appeals court has ruled that most of president Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal, describing the levies as “unbounded in scope, amount and duration”.The ruling, which will take effect on 14 October, is the biggest blow yet to Trump’s tariff policy and will likely mean the supreme court will have to rule on whether Trump has the legal right as president to upend US trade policy.Reacting to the decision on social media, the president said: “ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT!” If allowed to stand, the ruling would “literally destroy the United States of America”, he added.The president on Friday also revoked Secret Service protection for the former vice-president and 2024 election rival Kamala Harris after it was extended by Joe Biden before he left office. The move has been slammed by some as “another act of revenge”.Here are the key stories:Most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal, federal court rulesDonald Trump overstepped his presidential powers with most of his globe-rattling tariff policies, a federal appeals court in Washington DC ruled on Friday.US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax”, the court said.Many of Trump’s steep tariffs “are unbounded in scope, amount and duration”, the ruling added, and “assert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations” of the law his administration has leaned on.Read the full storyTrump revokes Kamala Harris’s Secret Service detail extended by BidenDonald Trump has revoked Secret Service protection for the former vice-president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.The letter, dated on Thursday and titled “Memorandum for the Secretary of Homeland Security”, instructs the Secret Service to “discontinue any security-related procedures beyond those required by law” effective 1 September 2025.Read the full storyUS denies visas to Palestinian Authority leaders for UN general assemblyThe US has begun denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the United Nations general assembly meeting in September, the state department said on Friday.“The Trump administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” it said in a statement.Read the full storyTrump bypasses Congress to cancel $4.9bn in foreign aidDonald Trump has told the House speaker, Mike Johnson, that he won’t be spending $4.9bn in congressionally approved foreign aid, in effect cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.Read the full storyRFK Jr peddles dubious health claims amid CDC crisisIn a week of chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been slammed for them by experts and lawmakers alike.After the deadly mass school shooting in Minneapolis this week where two children were killed and 17 others injured, Kennedy suggested that psychiatric drugs may be contributing to the rise in gun violence across the country.This week, Kennedy also suggested that he could identify “mitochondrial challenges” in children at airports just by looking at them.Read the full storyTrump looks to tighten visa durations for foreign students and journalistsThe Trump administration aims to tighten the duration of visas for students, cultural exchange visitors and members of the media, according to a proposed government regulation issued on Wednesday, part of a broader crackdown on legal immigration.Read the full storyMother of boy, 15, held at gunpoint by US immigration agents files $1m claimThe mother of a 15-year-old boy who was detained at gunpoint by federal immigration agents is seeking $1m in damages and accusing the Trump administration of false imprisonment and “unconstitutional racial profiling”.The teenager, a US citizen with disabilities, was in a vehicle with his mother outside Arleta high school in Los Angeles on 11 August when masked immigration agents surrounded them and pulled them from the vehicle. They said the boy was a suspect in a crime and handcuffed him for several minutes until they realized they had the wrong person, the Los Angeles Times reported.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Doctors at the US Department of Veterans Affairs would be barred from performing abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, under new rules proposed by the Trump administration.

      Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has signed a new redistricting bill that will redraw the state’s congressional map to heavily favor Republicans. On Friday, Abbott signed the highly controversial bill, which prompted state Democrats to stage a weeks-long walkout earlier this month.

      Neil Young has released a new song lambasting Donald Trump, entitled Big Crime. The Canadian-American rocker has long been a critic of the US president, suing him (but later dropping the lawsuit) over the use of his songs at campaign rallies and calling him “the worst president in the history of our great country”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 28 August 2025. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal, federal court rules

      by

      Donald Trump overstepped his presidential powers with most of his globe-rattling tariff policies, a federal appeals court in Washington DC ruled on Friday.US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax”, the court said in the 7-4 ruling.Many of Trump’s steep tariffs are “are unbounded in scope, amount and duration”, the ruling added, and “assert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations” of the law his administration has leant on.The court’s decision is the biggest blow yet to Trump’s tariff policies and will likely mean the supreme court will have to rule on whether he has the legal right as president to upend US trade policy. The court said the ruling would not take effect until 14 October.“ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT!” Trump wrote on social media, moments after the ruling came down, after the stock markets closed ahead of a three-day weekend in the US. In a lengthy post, he accused the appeals court of political bias.“If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” he continued. “At the start of this Labor Day weekend, we should all remember that TARIFFS are the best tool to help our Workers, and support Companies that produce great MADE IN AMERICA products.”The ruling voided Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs that set a 10% baseline on virtually all of the US’s trading partners and his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on countries he has argued have unfairly treated the US.Trump has claimed he has the right to impose tariffs on trading partners under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which in some circumstances grants the president authority to regulate or prohibit international transactions during a national emergency.The Trump administration has cited various national emergencies – including US trade deficits with trading partners, fentanyl trafficking, and immigration – as the reasons for the actions.But a group of small businesses has challenged the administration’s arguments, arguing they are “devastating small businesses across the country”.And on Friday, the appellate court ruled: “It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs.”The ruling also said the US law “neither mentions tariffs (or any of its synonyms) nor has procedural safeguards that contain clear limits on the president’s power to impose tariffs”.Earlier on Friday, Bloomberg reported that the administration, worried the court might invalidate the tariffs immediately, filed statements by Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, warning that such a decision would be a “dangerous diplomatic embarrassment” for the US.In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said that Trump “lawfully exercised the tariff powers granted to him by Congress to defend our national and economic security from foreign threats”.He said: “The president’s tariffs remain in effect, and we look forward to ultimate victory on this matter.”William Reinsch, a former senior commerce department official now with the Center on Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters that the Trump administration had been bracing for this ruling. He said: “It’s common knowledge the administration has been anticipating this outcome and is preparing a Plan B, presumably to keep the tariffs in place via other statutes.”The US trade court heard the case – VOS Selections Inc v Trump – in May, and ruled that the tariffs “exceed any authority granted to the president”. But the court agreed to a temporary pause in the decision pending an appeal hearing.The US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington DC heard oral arguments about the case on 31 July. Judges expressed skepticism about the administration’s arguments at the hearing. The IEEPA “doesn’t even say ‘tariffs’”, one of the judges noted. “Doesn’t even mention them.”In its ruling, the appeals court noted there were “numerous statutes” that do delegate the power to impose tariffs, in which “clear and precise terms” are used to this make clear.When Congress wants to delegate such authority, it typically “does so explicitly, either by using unequivocal terms like tariff and duty, or via an overall structure which makes clear that Congress is referring to tariffs”, the court added.It said: “The absence of any such tariff language in IEEPA contrasts with statutes where Congress has affirmatively granted such power and included clear limits on that power.”Trump’s tariffs have triggered economic and political uncertainty across the world and stoked fears of rising inflation. More

    • 263 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump aide defends Robert F Kennedy Jr over CDC chaos, calling him ‘crown jewel of this administration’ – US politics live

      by

      When speaking about the ongoing turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Miller says, without evidence, that the agency lacked “credibility” and was staffed by “partisan” bureaucrats who weren’t “at all concerned about public health, and weren’t actually very knowledgable about public health”.He goes on to defend health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is facing staunch criticism in the wake of firing CDC director Susan Monarez, and the resignation of several senior public health experts at the agency.“Secretary Kennedy has been a crown jewel of this administration who’s working tirelessly to improve public health for all Americans, and again, to deal with the drivers of the chronic health crisis in this country,” Miller said.Miller also claimed that Kennedy is “one of the world’s foremost voices, advocates and experts on public health”.The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, fired two dozen “deep-state” employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s information technology department on Friday, including its top leaders, following what she called an unspecified “breach” of its network by a “threat actor”.“While conducting a routine cybersecurity review, the DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) discovered significant security vulnerabilities that gave a threat actor access to FEMA’s network”, the homeland security department said in a statement. “The investigation uncovered several severe lapses in security that allowed the threat actor to breach FEMA’s network and threaten the entire Department and the nation as a whole.”The statement said that Fema’s chief information officer, Charlie Armstrong, chief information security officer, Greg Edwards, and 22 other IT employees “directly responsible” were fired.“FEMA’s career IT leadership failed on every level. Their incompetence put the American people at risk”, Noem said. “When DHS stepped in to fix the problem, entrenched bureaucrats worked to prevent us from solving the problem and downplayed just how bad this breach was. These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens’ personal data, so I terminated them immediately.”The firings came minutes after the department released a long statement attacking the federal emergency management agency that Donald Trump is pushing to close. “FEMA has failed Americans for decades”, the department’s official X account posted at the start of a thread deriding the agency, in which is claimed that “the Biden administration hijacked FEMA to resettle illegal aliens”.A federal appeals court in San Francisco has blocked homeland security secretary Kristi Noem from moving ahead with her plan to strip temporary protected status from 600,000 Venezuelans who have permission to live and work in the United States amid turmoil in their homeland.A three-judge panel of the 9th US circuit court of appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status for Venezuelans while TPS holders challenge actions by Trump’s administration in court.The judges found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that Noem had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension of temporary protected status by the Biden administration because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit it.“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote for the panel.The ruling concluded:“The TPS statute is designed to constrain the Executive, creating predictable periods of safety and legal status for TPS beneficiaries. Sudden reversals of prior decisions contravene the statute’s plain language and purpose. Here, hundreds of thousands of people have been stripped of status and plunged into uncertainty. The stability of TPS has been replaced by fears of family separation, detention, and deportation. Congress did not contemplate this, and the ongoing irreparable harm to Plaintiffs warrants a remedy pending a final adjudication on the merits.”A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told the Associated Press decision was made by “unelected activist” judges and claimed that, for decades, “the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program.”Congress authorized temporary protected status, or TPS, as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the limits on legal immigration to the United States and was signed into law by a Republican president, George H.W. Bush.The law established “a program for granting temporary protected status and work authorization to aliens in the United States who are nationals of countries designated by the Attorney General to be subject to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary temporary conditions.” The statute also made clear that it “Prohibits deportation during the period in which such status is in effect.”When speaking about the ongoing turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Miller says, without evidence, that the agency lacked “credibility” and was staffed by “partisan” bureaucrats who weren’t “at all concerned about public health, and weren’t actually very knowledgable about public health”.He goes on to defend health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is facing staunch criticism in the wake of firing CDC director Susan Monarez, and the resignation of several senior public health experts at the agency.“Secretary Kennedy has been a crown jewel of this administration who’s working tirelessly to improve public health for all Americans, and again, to deal with the drivers of the chronic health crisis in this country,” Miller said.Miller also claimed that Kennedy is “one of the world’s foremost voices, advocates and experts on public health”.Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, just spoke with reporters at the White House. He said that the administration will be “prioritizing enforcement in these sanctuary jurisdictions as a matter of public safety and national security”, when asked about upcoming immigration raids in so-called “sanctuary cities”, which are predominantly run by Democratic officials.Miller alleged that these cities do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), even when an immigrant commits a crime, saying they don’t comply with detainers issued by Ice. However, the American Immigration Council notes that sanctuary cities do not “shield immigrants from deportation or prosecution for criminal activities”.In a week of chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been slammed for them by experts and lawmakers alike.After the deadly mass school shooting in Minneapolis this week where two children were killed and 17 others injured, Kennedy suggested that psychiatric drugs may be contributing to the rise in gun violence across the country.During an appearance on Fox & Friends, the host Brian Kilmeade asked Kennedy if the health department was investigating whether medications used to treat gender dysphoria might be linked to school shootings.According to court documents reviewed by the Guardian, the 23-year-old shooter, Robin Westman, had changed their birth name from Robert to Robin because they identified as a woman.In response to Kilmeade’s question, Kennedy, without acknowledging the prevalence and easy accessibility of firearms across the US – said that his department was “launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence”.This week, Kennedy also suggested that he could identify “mitochondrial challenges” in children at airports just by looking at them.Speaking at an event in Texas alongside the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, Kennedy claimed: “I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street, and I see these kids that are just overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation. You can tell from their faces, from their body movements, and from their lack of social connection. And I know that that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”In response, Ashish Jha, former White House Covid-19 response coordinator under the Biden administration, said: “I’m sorry but what?”“This is wacky, flat-earth, voodoo stuff, people. This is not normal,” Jha added on X.Read more here:The administration is planning to ramp up immigration enforcement in Boston, Politico is reporting, citing a current and former administration official.According to the official, the latest plans are subject to change, but would involve an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) personnel in the city.Boston mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, has pushed back against the Trump administration, and said the city would “not back down” from engaging in “sanctuary city policies” outlined by the justice department, including limiting city police from helping Ice agents make arrests.Last week, acting Ice director Todd Lyons also said the increase in immigration enforcement was coming. “Sanctuary does not mean safer streets. It means more criminal aliens out and about the neighborhood. But 100%, you will see a larger Ice presence,” Lyons said in a radio interview.Meanwhile, border czar Tom Homan said this week that immigration raids across several Democratic-led cities would take place after Labor Day.My colleague, Lauren Aratani, has been covering the last days of “de minimis” – a longstanding tariff exemption that let people skip import fees for small-value packages.This ended today, and leaves small businesses and postal services around the world scrambling to apply Donald Trump’s tariffs to millions of shipments.Experts say the change could mean up to $13bn in extra costs and delayed shipping for consumers as businesses adjust to the change.Here’s what you need to know.Donald Trump said he would not be spending $4.9bn in congressionally approved foreign aid, in a letter to Republican house speaker Mike Johnson.The rare move, known as a “pocket rescission”, is a request to Congress for the president to not spend appropriated funds towards the end of the fiscal year –which ends on 30 September. Normally, the law stipulates that funding can be paused for 45 days while congress considers such a request. But a pocket rescission means that lawmakers don’t have enough time to act before the funds expire. This would be the first time a president has used the provision in 50 years.It’s already attracted ire from several legislators. Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine who chairs the appropriations committee called the president’s actions a “clear violation of the law”.Meanwhile, Democrats decried Trump’s actions. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member of the finance committee, said the president is a “wannabe king is defunding support that prevents hunger and sickness worldwide”, while congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said the decision to scrap billions in foreign funding was “wrong and illegal”, and urged his Republican colleagues to “say hell no”.

      At a hearing in Lisa Cook’s lawsuit, which challenges Donald Trump’s attempts to remove the governor from the Federal Reserve board, her lawyers said that her firing does “irreparable harm” as she’s a Senate-confirmed official who took an oath to carry out her role independently. They asked judge Jia Cobb to allow Cook to remain in her role as the litigation plays out. Cobb didn’t issue a ruling at the hearing. She will have to weigh whether the president had “cause” to terminate Cook, given the broad discretion he has under the Federal Reserve Act.

      Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has signed a new redistricting bill that will redraw the state’s congressional map to heavily favor Republicans. Abbott signed today the highly controversial bill which prompted state Democrats to stage a weeks-long walkout earlier this month. The new districting plans will remove Democratic-majority districts in several major cities including Houston, Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

      Donald Trump has revoked Secret Service protection for the former vice-president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, a senior White House official confirmed to the Guardian. Under federal law, former vice-presidents are entitled to receive Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office. However, Trump’s new directive cancels an undisclosed extension signed by then president Joe Biden before leaving office, according to CNN.

      Attorney general Pam Bondi said that federal law enforcement had made 86 arrests in Washington DC on Thursday. It brings the total tally of arrests made by federal officers to 1,369, according to the White House.

      The US is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority ahead of the United Nations general assembly meeting in September, the US state department has said in a statement.
      The US air force has said it is offering military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, a supporter of Donald Trump who was shot and killed by a police officer during the 6 January 2021, attack on the US Capitol.Babbitt, 35, a US air force veteran who lived in California, was fatally shot in the shoulder while she tried to enter a room near the House of Representatives during the riot.“After reviewing the circumstances of [senior airman] Babbitt’s death, the Air Force has offered Military Funeral Honors to [senior airman] Babbitt’s family,” the air force said in a statement seen by Reuters.The funeral honors would mark the latest gesture of support from Trump’s administration toward those who stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying his 2020 election loss. Trump has repeatedly made false claims that his 2020 loss to Joe Biden was due to voter fraud.He and his supporters have sought to portray Babbitt as a martyr who was unjustly killed as she attempted to climb through a broken window of a barricaded door leading to the speaker’s lobby, a few feet from where members of Congress were waiting to be evacuated to safety during the attack.An internal investigation by the US Capitol Police cleared the officer who shot Babbitt of wrongdoing in 2021 and said he would not face internal discipline. More than 1,500 people were criminally charged for participating in the riot. Trump pardoned nearly all of them, and released those who had been imprisoned.A controversial portrait of General Robert E Lee, which shows an enslaved man holding the Confederate leader’s horse, is being returned to the library at West Point, according to Pentagon officials who spoke with the New York Times.The nearly 20ft canvas, which had hung in the US military academy since 1952, was removed following a 2020 law that ordered Confederate names and tributes to be stripped from military installations.That same law established a commission to rename bases and review monuments. By 2022, the commission directed West Point to clear away all items that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy”. Shortly after, the Lee portrait was taken down and placed in storage.Exactly how the painting is being reinstalled without countering the legislation remains uncertain. The measure was passed in the wake of nationwide demonstrations after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.Both Donald Trump and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have pushed for the restoration of Confederate symbols that were removed in recent years. Hegseth, in particular, has pressed for reinstating a Confederate memorial at Arlington national cemetery that Congress recommended removing. In an August social media post, he wrote that the statue “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings”.Hegseth moved to reinstate Confederate general names at army bases such as Fort Bragg and Fort Lee earlier this summer, but did so in a way that attempted to stay within the boundaries of the 2020 law. The new names honored different soldiers, none of whom had fought for the Confederacy, yet the names were the same as those of the original Confederate honorees. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Court blocks Trump bid to end protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

      by

      A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Donald Trump’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the US, saying that plaintiffs are likely to win their claim that the president’s administration’s actions were unlawful.A three-judge panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status for Venezuelans while TPS holders challenge actions by the Republican president’s administration in court.The ninth circuit judges found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that homeland security secretary Kristi Noem had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension of TPS because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit it. The administration of Trump’s Democratic presidential predecessor Joe Biden had extended TPS for people from Venezuela.“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote for the panel. The other two judges on the panel were also nominated by Democratic presidents.In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) condemned the decision as more obstruction from “unelected activist” judges.“For decades the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program,” the email read. “While this injunction delays justice and undermines the integrity of our immigration system, secretary Noem will use every legal option at the department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans.”Congress authorized TPS as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows the DHS secretary to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return to that home country. The terms are for six, 12 and 18 months.The appellate judges said the guaranteed time limitations were critical so people could gain employment, find long-term housing and build stability without fear of shifting political winds.But in ending the protections soon after Trump took office, Noem said conditions in Venezuela had improved and it was not in the US national interest to allow migrants from there to stay on for what is a temporary program. It’s part of a broader move by Trump’s administration to reduce the number of immigrants who are in the country either without legal documentation or through legal temporary programs.US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco found in March that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the administration had overstepped its authority in terminating the protections. Chen postponed the terminations, but the US supreme court reversed him without explanation, which is common in emergency appeals.It is unclear what effect Friday’s ruling will have on the estimated 350,000 Venezuelans in the group of 600,000 whose protections expired in April. Their lawyers say some have already been fired from jobs, detained in immigration jails, separated from their US citizen children and even deported.Protections for the remaining 250,000 Venezuelans are set to expire 10 Sept.“What is really significant now is that the second court unanimously recognized that the trial court got it right,” said Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California representing plaintiffs.She added that while the decision might not benefit immediately those people who have already lost their status or are about to lose their status, Friday’s ruling “should provide a path for the administration’s illegal actions related to Venezuela and TPS to finally be undone”. More