Closing summary
We are wrapping up our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but will be back at it on Friday. In the meantime, here are the latest developments:
The Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and state house speaker Dustin Burrows have filed a lawsuit in Illinois to enforce arrest warrants against Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to block Republicans from enacting a gerrymandered congressional map that would likely add five more Republican seats before next year’s midterm elections. The civil petition was filed in an Adams county, Illinois, circuit court, about a four and a half hour drive from Chicago. More than 30 Texas Democratic members are named in the suit.
Donald Trump’s administration turned to the US supreme court in an effort to defend its aggressive immigration raids after a federal judge in Los Angeles blocked agents from profiling individuals based on race or language in pursuit of deportation targets. The justice department asked the supreme court in an emergency filing to lift the judge’s order temporarily barring agents from stopping or detaining people without “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally, by relying solely on their race or ethnicity, or if they speak Spanish or English with an accent.
Donald Trump will announce a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday 8 August, according to reports from both Reuters and CBS News. The respective leaders of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan, will attend events at the White House tomorrow, despite decades-long tension between the two countries.
Colleges and universities will be forced to disclose more student admissions data to prove that they are not implementing affirmative action policies, according to a directive sent by the White House on Thursday. The move comes as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on the use of race in the higher education application process. Ivy League universities, like Brown University, have reached settlements that require them to release information about applicants’ race.
More than 60 countries around the world are scrambling to respond to the latest wave of US tariffs announced by Donald Trump, which came into force on Thursday. Industry representatives in rich and poor countries warned of job losses as the tariffs upended a decades-old world trading system with rates ranging from 10% to 39%, 40% and 41% for Switzerland, Brazil and Syria. All over the globe, leaders were attempting to put contingencies in place after Trump’s tariff threats turned to reality at a minute past midnight Washington time.
Donald Trump has said he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin despite the Russian leader’s refusal to meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dispelling speculation that direct talks between the two warring presidents were a precondition to a high-level US-Russia summit. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said that Putin did not have to meet with Zelenskyy first before the US and Russian presidents could meet.
Donald Trump has called on Intel’s chief executive to resign, alleging Lip-Bu Tan had ties to the Chinese Communist party, sending the stock of the US chipmaker falling. “The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted on Truth Social about Tan. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”
Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he has ordered the commerce department to conduct a new census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the official count. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the census would be “based on modern day facts and figures” and use “results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024”. He added that “people who are in our country illegally will not be counted”.
The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, is facing growing criticism from scientists who say their “worst fears” were realized when Wright revealed that the Trump administration would “update” the US’s premier climate crisis reports. Wright, a former oil and gas executive, told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins earlier this week that the administration was reviewing national climate assessment reports published by past governments.
A coalition of conservation groups has welcomed a federal judge’s ruling on Thursday that halts construction work on the immigration jail in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz. US district judge Kathleen Williams ordered workers to stop adding any new paving, infrastructure or ground filling at the remote tented detention camp that the Trump administration intends to use to eventually hold 3,000 immigrants awaiting deportation.
Leading Democrats are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s reported plan to divert funds from the US nuclear arsenal to convert a luxury jet gifted by Qatar into a new Air Force One. The US president provoked an outcry in May when it emerged that he would accept a $400m Boeing 747-8 jet as a free gift from the Qatari royal family. Stripping down and securing the plane so it can transport Trump for a few years will cost taxpayers an estimated $1bn.
White House signals increase in federal law enforcement in DC - report
The Trump administration plans to increase the federal law enforcement presence in Washington DC as early as Friday morning, CBS News reports.
The move follows the alleged assault of a former staffer of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Edward Coristine, over the weekend.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said that he may place DC under federal control if the city doesn’t “get its act together, and quickly”.
Officers will come from the DC national guard, FBI, US marshals, Ice, US Secret Service and other components of the Department of Homeland Security, according to an official who spoke with the news outlet.
A White House official told CBS News that the increased federal law enforcement presence on DC streets would begin at midnight Thursday and focus on tourist areas and other known hot spots.
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Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and several lawmakers on Thursday called for a congressional hearing to “prioritize the individuals who survived the horrific abuse associated with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their associates”.
In a letter to chair James Comer of the House committee on oversight and government reform, representatives Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Robert Garcia and others said that survivors must be given the opportunity to share their stories in order to support their healing and to ensure a transparent investigation.
“If the Committee is to conduct credible oversight, it must hear directly from survivors, or their representatives, who volunteer to advance our investigation on their own terms,” reads the letter. “Some survivors have expressed a clear willingness and desire to come before Congress, and the Committee cannot meet their strength and bravery with inaction.”
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Texas Republicans ask court to make Illinois police arrest Democrats who broke quorum
The Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and state house speaker Dustin Burrows have filed a lawsuit in Illinois to enforce arrest warrants against Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to block Republicans from enacting a gerrymandered congressional map that would likely add five more Republican seats before next year’s midterm elections.
The civil petition was filed in an Adams county, Illinois, circuit court, about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Chicago. More than 30 Texas Democratic members are named in the suit. Other Democrats are staying in New York and Massachusetts.
“We are pursuing every legal remedy at our disposal to hold these rogue legislators accountable,” said Paxton. “Texas deserves representatives who do their jobs instead of running away at the behest of their billionaire handlers.”
State representative John Bucy III from Austin condemned the move, and said that Paxton and Burrows were using “the justice system to hunt down their political opponents and silence the voices of millions of Texans and Americans across the country”.
“It’s now more clear than ever that Republicans are scared,” he added. “They’re scared of the voters. They’re scared of being held accountable.”
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During an interview with Fox News, Benjamin Netanyahu said the New York Times “should be sued” after the newspaper amended an article about starvation in Gaza to include that a child featured in the story, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, had a pre-existing medical condition that affects his appearance, in addition to having severe malnutrition.
The Times responded to the prime minister of Israel via a statement on X, asserting that “attempts to threaten independent media providing vital information and accountability to the public are unfortunately an increasingly common playbook”.
“Journalists continue to report from Gaza for The Times, bravely, sensitively, and at personal risk, so that readers can see firsthand the consequences of the war,” the statement reads.
Obtaining food in Gaza has become an increasingly difficult and deadly endeavor. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, many of them by Israeli forces, while heading toward aid sites. More than 20,000 children were admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
The Guardian made a separate comment when we first published the picture on the homepage and the front of the print edition.
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Texas representative Greg Casar, a Democrat, told supporters he understands the urge to not be “alarmist” about what is taking place across the country. But, he said, he worries the US press is not doing enough to make the stakes clear for Americans.
“Think about if it was another country and the corrupt president of that country wanted to change the election laws at the last minute, and he got a political ally to threaten to arrest using federal law enforcement, the entire opposition party who’s getting in the way, and even threatened to use the judicial system to expel the entire other political party from office. You would say democracy is on its last legs in that other country,” Casar, chair of the Progressive caucus, said on an organizing call Thursday night. “But that’s not some other country. That’s the United States. That’s what we’re facing right now in Texas.”
“This is what authoritarianism starts to look like,” he added. “They’re wannabe dictators, and we’ve got to keep them wannabes and not let them further consolidate their power.”
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Texas representative Lloyd Doggett opposes partisan gerrymandering on principle. But on Thursday, he was urging Californians to “raise” an effort by their governor to “fight fire with fire” and counter Republicans’ attempt to redraw Texas’s congressional map to gain five seats.
Putting his own spin on the adage “two wrongs don’t make a right”, Doggett said: “Two wrongs can save our country.”
“If we play by these separate rules, Trump will rule,” he warned on the call with other state and federal lawmakers.
Not every quorum break is successful, said Doggett, who in 1979 was part of a group of Democrats dubbed the “killer bees” who hid out in a garage for days to block legislation changing the Texas presidential primary date. Republicans dropped the bill and the walkout was successful.
“It’s much more difficult to win these days with the FBI, the federal law enforcement and the state doing so much to intimidate a much larger group of House Democrats,” he said, before appealing to people in California and other blue states to support partisan redistricting efforts that would offset Texas’s actions.
“Raise this California effort,” he said. “It is our best hope to checkmate Donald Trump for what’s going wrong in Texas, and if you’re in any state where there’s a possibility of an attack by Republicans – Missouri, Indiana, Florida, of course, and several others – we need to activate every progressive voice to oppose the Texas plague from Donald Trump spreading across the country.”
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Scientists decry Trump energy chief’s plan to ‘update’ climate reports: ‘exactly what Stalin did’
The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, is facing growing criticism from scientists who say their “worst fears” were realized when Wright revealed that the Trump administration would “update” the US’s premier climate crisis reports.
Wright, a former oil and gas executive, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins earlier this week that the administration was reviewing national climate assessment reports published by past administrations.
Since 2000, there have been five national climate assessment (NCA) reports, which are produced by scientists and peer-reviewed, and they are considered the gold standard report of global heating and its effects on human health, agriculture, water supplies and air pollution.
“We’re reviewing them, and we will come out with updated reports on those and with comments on those reports,” said Wright, who is one of the main supporters of the administration’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda to boost fossil fuels, which are the primary cause of the climate crisis.
Wright was speaking days after his agency, the Department of Energy, produced a report claiming that concern over the climate crisis was overblown. That energy department report was slammed by scientists for being a “farce” full of misinformation.
Read the full story by Mark Oliver here:
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Key event
The Environmental Protection Agency will end a $7bn Biden-era grant program that sought to expand solar energy to low-income communities, administrator Lee Zeldin said in a post on X on Thursday.
“EPA no longer has the authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” Zeldin said in a video post.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Donald Trump last month eliminated the program’s source of funding, Zeldin added.
Cancellation of the Solar for All program had been widely expected. Since taking office in January, Trump has rolled back federal support for solar and wind energy, calling the renewable resources expensive and unreliable.
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The Trump administration offered a $50m reward on Thursday for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
“Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like TDA (Tren de Aragua), Sinaloa and Cartel of the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country,” attorney general Pam Bondi said in a video posted on X.
In 2020, during Trump’s first term, the government offered up to $15m for information on Maduro, and then raised that reward to up to $25m in January.
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Donald Trump on Thursday said he will host the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia for an “an official peace-signing ceremony” at the White House on Friday.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the US will also be signing bilateral economic agreements with the two countries.
The countries, both of which won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
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Katie Miller, a top aide to Elon Musk who is married to the White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, is launching a podcast for conservative mothers.
“For years I’ve seen that there isn’t a place for conservative women to gather online,” she said in the announcement. “I wanted to create that space, where we have real, honest conversations with people across the political spectrum and across the world.”
Miller was aan aide for Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” and had served in Donald Trump’s first administration, Mike Pence’s communications director.
She said in her announcement she was “concluding” her time working full-time for Musk.
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Democratic representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland is urging FBI agents to resist taking part in efforts to track down a group of Texas Democrats who left the state to stop a Republican effort to redistrict, the Huffington Post reports.
Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, which conducts oversight of the FBI, said the agency has no authority to locate and investigate the state legislators as Republican senator John Cornyn claimed earlier on Thursday.
“The FBI is not a national secret police force operating at the beck and call of President Trump,” Raskin told HuffPost. “It has no legal authority to track down state legislators who are breaking no federal laws just for standing up to a Republican scheme to purge Democrats from Congress and rig our elections.”
“FBI personnel should refuse to participate in this act of political harassment and persecution,” Raskin added.
Earlier today, Cornyn said the FBI had agreed to assist in returning Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block Republicans’ effort to add five more GOP seats to the state legislature through a gerrymandered congressional map. That claim could not be independently confirmed.
The Texas lawmakers who left the state are currently staying at a hotel in suburban Chicago.
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Key event
The US air force said it would deny all transgender service members who have served from 15 to 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement benefits, the AP reports.
One air force sergeant said he felt “betrayed and devastated” by the move.
The move means that transgender service members will now be faced with the choice of either taking a lump-sum separation payment offered to junior troops or be removed from the service.
An air force spokesperson told the AP that “although service members with 15 to 18 years of honorable service were permitted to apply for an exception to policy, none of the exceptions to policy were approved”.
About a dozen service members had been “prematurely notified” that they would be able to retire before that decision was reversed, according to the spokesperson who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal air force policy.
A memo issued Monday announcing the new policy said that the choice to deny retirement benefits was made “after careful consideration of the individual applications”.
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Earlier, we reported that two senior FBI officials involved in a number of FBI investigations related to the president had been fired. Now, senior politics reporter Chris Stein brings us more details:
The Trump administration is forcing out a senior FBI official who resisted demands made earlier this year for the names of agents who investigated the January 6 insurrection, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Brian Driscoll briefly served as acting FBI director in the first weeks of Donald Trump’s new term, and his final day at the bureau is Friday, the people told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to discuss the move. Further ousters were possible.
The FBI declined to comment to the Guardian.
The New York Times further reported that the FBI was forcing out Walter Giardina, a special agent who worked on cases involving Trump as well as Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to the president who was convicted of contempt of Congress.
The ousters were the latest under the FBI director, Kash Patel, and his deputy, Dan Bongino, who had repeatedly alleged that the bureau had become politicized under Joe Biden. Numerous senior officials, including top agents in charge of big-city field offices, have been pushed out of their jobs, and some agents have been subjected to polygraph exams, moves that former officials say have roiled the workforce and contributed to angst.
Here’s the full story:
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Trump administration asks supreme court to intervene after ruling on immigration profiling ban
Donald Trump’s administration turned to the US supreme court in an effort to defend its aggressive immigration raids after a federal judge in Los Angeles blocked agents from profiling individuals based on race or language in pursuit of deportation targets.
The justice department asked the supreme court in an emergency filing to lift the judge’s order temporarily barring agents from stopping or detaining people without “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally, by relying solely on their race or ethnicity, or if they speak Spanish or English with an accent.
The move comes after a federal judge last month ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven California counties, including Los Angeles.
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Donald Trump said Thursday that he would meet with Vladimir Putin even if the Russian president won’t meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump, when asked by a reporter whether Putin would need to meet with the Ukrainian president to secure a meeting with the US, said: “No, he doesn’t. No.”
His comments followed Putin’s remarks earlier in the day that he hoped to meet with Trump next week, possibly in the United Arab Emirates. But the White House was still working through the details of any potential meetings, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
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Donald Trump announced he will nominate the Council of Economic Advisers chair Stephen Miran to serve as a Federal Reserve governor.
Miran would fill the position opened by Fed governor Adriana Kugler’s surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University.
The term expires on 31 January 2026 and is subject to approval by the Senate.
Trump said the White House continues to search for someone to serve in the 14-year Fed Board seat that opens 1 February.
Miran has advocated for a far-reaching overhaul of Fed governance that would include shortening board member terms, putting them under the clear control of the president and ending the “revolving door” between the executive branch and the Fed.
Trump has unsuccessfully pushed the Fed to cut rates. Miran, if confirmed by the Senate, would have one of 12 votes on monetary policy at the Fed, which voted 9-2 last month to keep rates steady.
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Donald Trump and Stephen Moore, a fellow at the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, held an event at the White House on Thursday to show reporters “new numbers” that allege the Bureau of Labor Statistics overstated job creation during the first two years of the Biden administration.
“I don’t think it’s an error,” Trump said during today’s event. “I think they did it purposely.”
Moore said the data comes from “unpublished Census Bureau data”, and will supposedly be released sometime in the next six months.
Moore is Trump’s former economic advisor and co-wrote the book Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy”, which praised the president’s economic plans. In 2019, Trump nominated Moore for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, but he withdrew amid scrutiny for his history of sexist comments and other scandals.
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Trump administration orders universities to prove they don't consider race in admissions
Colleges and universities will be forced to disclose more student admissions data to prove that they are not implementing affirmative action policies, according to a directive sent by the White House on Thursday.
The move comes as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on the use of race in the higher education application process. Ivy League universities, like Brown University, have reached settlements that require them to release information about applicants’ race.
Colleges have been barred from considering race in admissions since 2023, when the supreme court overturned decades of precedent that allowed limited use of race as a factor. Trump’s directive would increase oversight of schools’ admissions processes.
“Although the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students’ civil rights,” the directive reads, “the persistent lack of available data – paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies – continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice.”
The directive was confirmed earlier today by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
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As we gear up for Donald Trump’s remarks soon, here’s a recap of the day so far:
The president’s higher tariffs hit major US trading partners today. Trump and members of his cabinet declared it an economic victory, with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick estimating that the tariffs will lead to “$50bn a month” in revenue for the USand treasury secretary Scott Bessent saying a “manufacturing renaissance” was on the horizon in an interview with MSNBC. Countries feeling the hit, however, are now scrambling to respond.
Republican senator John Cornyn of Texas said today that the FBI had approved his request for the agency to help locate and arrest Democratic state lawmakers, who left the state last week to break quorum in protest over a GOP-drawn congressional map. “We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities,” Cornyn said in a statement.
In response, undeterred Democrats have fired back. “The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X. “We will not be intimidated.”
Meanwhile, on Truth Social, Donald Trump announced today that he’s ordered the commerce department to conduct a new census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the official count. “People who are in our country illegally will not be counted,” the president said. It’s important to note that the US census has historically counted all residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status, as required by the 14th amendment’s “whole number of persons” provision.
And in Florida, the administration’s immigration agenda hit a snag as a federal judge in Miami ordered a temporary halt to the construction of the detention centre being built in the Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz”. While the injunction says the facility can continue to operate and hold detainees, any further construction must stop while environmental threats to the wetlands are assessed.
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As Trump’s latest tariffs snap into effect, countries scramble to respond
More than 60 countries around the world are scrambling to respond to the latest wave of US tariffs announced by Donald Trump, which came into force on Thursday.
The Brazilian government said it was planning a state aid plan for companies affected. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said the duties were “unacceptable blackmail”.
Switzerland said it was seeking new talks with the US after a last-gasp mission to Washington by its president, Karin Keller-Sutter, failed to stop a 39% tariff blow that industry group Swissmem described as a “horror scenario”.
In a statement after an emergency meeting with Keller-Sutter, the Swiss cabinet said the tariffs would “place a substantial strain on Switzerland’s export-oriented economy”.
“For the affected sectors, companies and their employees, this is an extraordinarily difficult situation,” Keller-Sutter told reporters.
Despite a last-minute reprieve from Trump for Lesotho with tariffs dropping from 50% to 15%, the impoverished African nation said it was already hurting.
Textile industry players in the country – which produces jeans and other garments for US companies including Levi and Walmart – said the uncertainty around tariffs over the past few months had already devastated the sector, with orders cancelled and jobs cut.
Read more here:
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Federal judge orders temporary halt to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ construction
A federal judge in Miami has ordered a temporary halt to the construction of the detention centre being built in the Florida everglades known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.
The temporary injunction, which lasts for 14 days, states that the facility can continue to operate and hold detainees, but any further construction must stop while any environmental threats to the wetlands are assessed.
The plaintiffs – which comprise environmental groups and Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe – argue that the detention center’s construction ultimately violates the National Environmental Policy Act.
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US federal courts say they have been targeted by cyber-attacks
The federal judiciary said on Thursday that it would be taking “additional steps” to strengthen protections for sensitive case documents after “recent escalated cyber-attacks” on its case management system.
Politico first reported the news of a hack that hit the federal courts’ filing system.
“Enhancing the security of its systems is a top priority for the Judiciary,” the Federal Courts system wrote in a statement. They didn’t offer any immediate information about who was behind the cyber-attacks.
My colleagues are reporting on the latest developments following Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks that he intends to take military control of all of Gaza, before eventually handing it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly.
The Israeli prime minister’s statement comes after special envoy Steve Witkoff visited the region last week to assess the ongoing humanitarian crisis, increase the flow of US aid to Gaza.
You can follow along here:
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Democrats respond to FBI agreement to locate Texas lawmakers: 'We will not be intimidated'
Democrats have responded to the news earlier that the FBI has agreed to assist local law enforcement to track down Democratic lawmakers who left the state to break quorum in protest of the state’s GOP-drawn congressional map.
It comes after Republican Senator John Cornyn’s statement earlier, praising FBI director Kash Patel for his support.
Hakeem Jeffries lambasted the move in a post on X.
“The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,” the House minority leader wrote. “We will not be intimidated.”
Meanwhile, Illinois governor JB Pritzker underscored on a podcast on Wednesday that Texas lawmakers hadn’t broken any laws. He also said that any arrests by FBI agents would be “unwelcome” in his state.
“They’re grandstanding, there’s literally no federal law applicable to this situation,” he added.
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Trump to announce Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal on Friday – report
We’re getting word that Donald Trump will announce a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday 8 August, according to reports from both Reuters and CBS News.
The respective leaders of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan, will attend events at the White House tomorrow, despite decades-long tension between the two countries.
Part of the peace deal would include rights for the US to develop a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus, officials told Reuters.
Tomorrow’s meeting comes as the president sets to position himself as a perpetual peacemaker, and will happen on the same day as Trump’s deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, or face fresh sanctions.
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The White House says that the vice-president, JD Vance, will meet with the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, tomorrow, 8 August.
Vance and his family are currently on vacation in the Cotswolds. The vice-president plans to meet Lammy at his countryside residence, Chevening House, in Kent.
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Suspect in shooting of Minnesota lawmakers pleads not guilty in federal court
The suspect in the assassination of Minnesota’s house speaker and her husband, and the attempted murder of a state senator and his wife, pleaded not guilty to numerous charges in federal court on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Vance Luther Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, led police on a two-day manhunt after the 14 June shootings in New Hope, Minnesota. He appeared before US magistrate judge Dulce Foster on Thursday and waived the reading of his six-count indictment, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
He entered a plea of not guilty in the murders of speaker emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the shooting of state senator John Hoffman and his wife.
Boelter’s attorney, Manny Atwal, could not immediately be reached for comment. There was no immediate statement from acting US attorney for Minnesota, Joseph Thompson.
Thompson in a previous statement said Boelter planned and carried out the targeted political assassinations “the likes of which have never been seen in Minnesota”.
During the attacks at the homes of the two lawmakers, Boelter is accused of disguising himself as a police officer and wearing a silicone mask while driving an SUV with a license plate that simply read: “Police.”
Two of the federal charges carry the possibility of the death penalty. Prosecutors have not made a decision whether to pursue a capital sentence, which would require the approval of US attorney general Pam Bondi.
Boelter also faces state charges including two counts of second-degree intentional murder and two counts of second-degree attempted intentional murder. Boelter’s state case has been paused as his federal proceedings continue.
Trump calls for new US census that excludes undocumented immigrants
Donald Trump announced today that he’s ordered the commerce department to conduct a new census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the official count.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the census would be “based on modern day facts and figures” and use “results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024”. He added that “people who are in our country illegally will not be counted”.
The US census has historically counted all residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status, as required by the 14th amendment’s “whole number of persons” provision. Trump’s directive contradicts this constitutional requirement despite there being no evidence of problems with the 2020 census.
The move would fulfil a longstanding rightwing talking point that undocumented immigrants should not influence congressional representation or electoral votes. Far-right figures have long claimed that states like California gain unfair political advantage by counting non-citizens. The political activist Charlie Kirk, for example, argued in 2020 that “California gets an extra 9 electoral votes because of counting illegals.”
Census data determines congressional representation, electoral college apportionment and the distribution of federal funding for schools, hospitals and other essential services. States with large non-citizen populations – particularly California, Texas, Florida and New York – could see their political influence and federal resources sharply reduced under Trump’s proposed changes.
Legal and immigration advocates have also long stressed that restricting the census to citizens could depress participation among legal immigrants, who are alreadyundercounted because they may be more reluctant to engage with government authorities.
US medical student suspended for Gaza remarks sues university for ‘intentional discrimination’
Umaymah Mohammad, perhaps the only student in the US to be suspended from medical school for remarks about Israel and Gaza, has filed a federal lawsuit against Atlanta’s Emory University, alleging discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as additional complaints under state law.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday morning in federal district court on Mohammad’s behalf by the Council on Islamic-American Relations in Georgia (Cair-Ga), centers on Emory’s alleged “intentional discrimination and retaliation” during disciplinary proceedings against the medical-sociology dual degree student last year. It names the university, its board of trustees and John William Eley, a dean at the medical school, as defendants.
It has been filed in pursuit of “accountability and justice … [and] has potential repercussions for how student activists have been treated over the last two years in this country”, said Azka Mahmood, executive director of Cair-Ga.
If successful, the lawsuit could lead to “stopping disciplinary proceedings for protected expression – and that this becomes more of a policy moving forward” – both at Emory and elsewhere, said Keon Grant, one of the Cair-Ga attorneys who filed the complaint.
The school declined to provide comment to the Guardian on pending litigation.
FBI fires two high-ranking officials - report
The FBI has fired two senior officials, according to a report from The New York Times.
Brian Driscoll, who served as interim director before Kash Patel was confirmed, and Walter Giardiana, who was involved in a number of FBI investigations related to the president, have both been forced out per The Times’ sources.
Driscoll’s removal was not immediately clear, according to The Times. But the Times also reports that neither Driscoll nor Giardina is eligible to retire, and Giardina’s wife died last month of cancer.
Trump to sign order forcing universities to hand over admissions data - report
The president is expected to sign a memorandum today, ordering universities to hand over their admissions data to the federal government, in order to prove they aren’t engaging in affirmative action and secure funding, according to a report by The Daily Caller.
According to fact sheet obtained by The Daily Caller, the order will also direct the secretary of education Linda McMahon to expand the type of data that universities need to submit to the administration in order “to fully asses their practices”.
In 2023, the US supreme court effectively ended affirmative action, when it ruled against the use of race in college admissions at universities and colleges across the country.
Indiana state representative Matt Pierce, a Democrat, said in an interview with CNN today that Democrats in the state will “use every procedural manoeuvre available” to push back against redistricting efforts. “We have to have a national fight about this, and we have to preserve democracy. We shouldn’t be rigging the election for one way or the other,” Pierce added.
This comes as vice-president JD Vance meets with Indiana governor Mike Braun and state Republicans to apply pressure on them to redraw the states congressional map – as a redistricting battle plays out across the country.
In order to redraw Indiana’s map, Braun would need to call a special session of the state legislature. My colleague, Sam Levine, notes that the GOP already has control over seven of Indiana’s nine congressional seats, but Republicans also have complete control of state government, which would allow them to redraw the map to pick up more seats.
Across the US’s fabled but overstretched national parks, unusual scenes are playing out this summer – following budget cuts by Donald Trump’s administration.
Archeologists are staffing ticket booths, ecologists are covering visitor centers and the superintendents of parks are even cleaning the toilets.
The National Park Service (NPS), responsible for maintaining cherished wildernesses and sites of cultural importance from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, has lost a quarter of its permanent staff since Trump took office in January, with the administration seeking to gut the service’s budget by a third.
But the administration has also ordered parks to remain open and accessible to the public, meaning the NPS has had to scramble remaining staff into public-facing roles to maintain appearances to the crowds of visitors. This has meant much of the behind-the-scenes work to protect endangered species, battle invasive plants, fix crumbling infrastructure or plan for the future needs of the US’s trove of natural wonders has been jettisoned.
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Senator Cornyn says FBI grants request to locate state lawmakers
Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has approved his request for the agency to help locate and arrest Democratic state lawmakers, who left the state last week to break quorum in protest over a GOP-drawn congressional map.
“I thank President Trump and Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable for fleeing Texas. We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities,” Cornyn said in a statement. The FBI declined the Guardian’s request for comment.
Cornyn wrote a letter to FBI director Kash Patel earlier this week, imploring him to help round up and arrest the state legislators – many of whom are waiting out the remainder of Texas’ special session in blue states.
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Lutnick claims '$50bn' in monthly tariff revenue
Also making the cable news rounds today is commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, who said the US can expect “to be heading towards $50bn a month in tariff revenue,” in an interview with Fox Business Network.
“And then you’re going to get the semiconductors, you’re going to get pharmaceuticals, you’re going to get all sorts of additional tariff money coming in,” he added. “Everybody understands you’ve got to see to the American consumer. The American consumer is the most powerful factor in the Earth for the economy.”
Bessent says '$300bn' likely in annual tariff revenue
When asked about how much money the US can expect to bring in from Donald Trump’s tariffs each year, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said that $300bn was “a good start”. He compared this to the $77bn brought in from tariff revenue in 2024.
“This year, we could have about 300 billion of new revenue, which is 1% of GDP. And then there’s a chance that that could be higher in ‘26,” Bessent said in an interview with MSNBC.
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'We've got trillions of manufacturing that's going to come back,' says treasury secretary Bessent
As Donald Trump’s tariffs on swathes of major US trading partners take effect today, his treasury secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with MSNBC earlier that things have “just gotten out of balance” and “we’ve stopped making things in the US,” when quizzed about tariffs issued against key allies like South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the EU.
Bessent added that he’s confident that tariffs will reinvigorate American manufacturing, citing the corporate commitments from the likes of Apple.
“We want to get rid of these big deficits that we have with countries that have created these big surpluses and gutted our manufacturing base,” he said. “We’ve got trillions and trillions of manufacturing that’s going to come back, and we’re going to see that over the next couple of years.”
Bessent went on to describe this period as a “manufacturing renaissance”.
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Trump to sign executive orders on 401k choice and 'debanking'
A White House official tells the Guardian that the president will sign two finance-related executive orders today.
The first will be an action that allows 401k holders to “to access alternative assets” such as private equity, according to details shared with the Guardian.
The second order will focus on Trump’s claims of banks discriminating against conservatives. This would punish banks for the process of “debanking” – which involves limiting financial services based on religious or political beliefs.
More details emerge about shooting at Georgia military base
We’ve gotten more details about the shooting on an army base in Georgia on Wednesday. A reminder that an active-duty soldier opened fire at Fort Stewart military base yesterday, wounding five other soldiers before being taken into custody.
Officials said the alleged shooter was 28-year-old Sgt Quornelius Radford, who was assigned to Fort Stewart.
Brig Gen John Lubas, commander of the third infantry division and Fort Stewart-Hunter army airfield, said soldiers in the area who witnessed the shooting “immediately and without hesitation tackled the soldier, subdued him. That allowed law enforcement to then take him into custody.”
The base said in a Facebook post that the shooting occurred in the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team area. “All soldiers were treated on-site and moved to Winn Army Community Hospital for further treatment,” the base said.
Lubas confirmed the shooter did not use a military weapon. “We believe it was a personal handgun,” he said.
According to reporting from The New York Times, Radford sent a text message to his aunt on Wednesday morning which said that he “loved everybody, and that he’ll be in a better place because he was about to go and do something”.
The Times also spoke with Radford’s father, who said he hasn’t noticed anything unusual about his son’s behavior recently, and didn’t know what might have led him to attack his fellow soldiers.
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Donald Trump is at the White House today. His day is looking quiet until noon EDT, when he’ll sign executive orders. Then at 4pm EDT he’s deliver remarks in the East Room.
We’ll be watching and bringing you the latest.
President Donald Trump on Thursday called for the Intel new CEO Lip-Bu Tan to immediately resign, saying he is “highly conflicted” after questions arose about his ties to Chinese firms.
“There is no other solution to this problem,” he said in a Truth Social post.
It comes as Republican senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel’s board chair on Wednesday with questions about Tan’s ties to Chinese firms and a recent criminal case involving his former company Cadence Design.
Writing to “express concern about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations and its potential impact on US national security”, Cotton asked in the letter to Intel chairperson Frank Yeary whether the company’s board was aware of the subpoenas sent to Cadence during Tan’s time there as CEO before Intel hired him.
Cotton asked what measures were taken to address those concerns.
US border patrol agents carried out a raid outside a Home Depot in Los Angeles on Wednesday, with officers jumping out of an unmarked rental truck and chasing and arresting more than a dozen people.
Videos of the operation, and federal officials’ statements boasting about the detentions, have raised questions about whether the US government was complying with a federal court order halting indiscriminate raids in the region due to evidence of racial profiling. That ruling, upheld last week by an appeals court, followed reports of Latino US citizens getting swept up in LA raids and accounts of undocumented people being targeted based on their appearance and whether they spoke Spanish.
Clips of the early morning raid by Home Depot in the Westlake neighborhood, near MacArthur Park, showed masked, heavily armed officers jumping out of a yellow truck from Penske, a private rental company, and people fleeing. Day laborers often gather outside Home Depot stores looking for work and have been subject to aggressive immigration raids in southern California.
One day-laborer present for the Wednesday raid told the Los Angeles Times that the Penske truck pulled up to the parking lot around 6.45am, with the driver telling people gathered in Spanish that he had work to offer. Someone then rolled up the back of the truck, and masked agents, including one in a cowboy hat, jumped out as people scattered, the witness said.
Donald Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on foreign computer chips, likely raising the cost of electronics, autos, household appliances and other goods deemed essential for the digital age.
“We’ll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. “But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”
The Republican president said companies that make computer chips in the US would be spared the import tax. During the Covid-19 pandemic, a shortage of computer chips increased the price of autos and contributed to an overall uptick in inflation.
Trump and Cook were meeting on Wednesday to discuss an agreement for Apple to invest $100bn in manufacturing in the US over the next four years. That comes after the iPhone maker already pledged to invest $500bn domestically earlier this year. With Apple’s new investment, the total figure is now at $600bn.
Trump directs Commerce Department to create new US Census
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he has instructed the Department of Commerce to begin creating a new Census “based on modern day facts and figures” and that uses the results and information from the 2024 presidential election.
“People who are in our Country illegally will not be counted in the census,” he said in a Truth Social post.
He added:
I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.
Donald Trump on Wednesday celebrated a commitment by Apple to increase its investments in US manufacturing by an additional $100bn over the next four years.
Apple’s plan to up its domestic investment comes as it seeks to avoid Trump’s threatened tariffs, which would increase the tech giant’s costs as it relies on a complex international supply chain to produce its iPhones. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, warned during an earnings call in May that the tariffs could cost the company up to $900m that fiscal quarter alone.
After Cook gifted Trump a US-made souvenir with a 24-karat gold base at the Oval Office on Wednesday, the president praised the corporation, telling reporters: “Companies like Apple, they’re coming home … This is a significant step toward the ultimate goal of ensuring that iPhones sold in America also are made in America.”
Cook said many components of the iPhones are already made domestically, including glass, semiconductors and face ID, but that final assembly of the devices would remain overseas “for a while”. In an earlier statement, Cook had said the new investments involve work with 10 companies across the US that produce components used in Apple products.
Apple had previously said it intended to invest $500bn domestically, a figure it will now increase to $600bn. Apple also claimed that it would directly hire 20,000 US workers over the next four years.
JD Vance’s team had the army corps of engineers take the unusual step of changing the outflow of a lake in Ohio to accommodate a recent boating excursion on a family holiday, the Guardian has learned.
The request from the US Secret Service was made to “support safe navigation” of the US vice-president’s security detail for an August outing on the Little Miami River, according to a statement by the US army corps of engineers (USACE).
Vance was spotted in the south-western Ohio area on 2 August, his 41st birthday, according to social media posts that noted he was seen canoeing on the river, a tributary that Caesar Creek Lake feeds into.
One source with knowledge of the matter who communicated with the Guardian anonymously alleged that the outflow request for the Caesar Creek Lake was not just to support the vice-president’s Secret Service detail, but also to create “ideal kayaking conditions”. The Guardian could not independently confirm this specific claim.
The news raises questions about whether Vance’s office was potentially exploiting public infrastructure resources for his personal recreation at a time when the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in foreign aid, scientific research and government jobs as part of its “efficiency” drive.
The vice-president’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Leading Democrats are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s reported plan to divert funds from the US nuclear arsenal to convert a luxury jet gifted by Qatar into a new Air Force One.
The US president provoked an outcry in May when it emerged that he would accept a $400m Boeing 747-8 jet as a free gift from the Qatari royal family. Stripping down and securing the plane so it can transport Trump for a few years will cost taxpayers an estimated $1bn.
Now Democrats are seizing on media reports that the retrofit will be part funded by money redirected from Sentinel, a nuclear missile modernisation programme already running years behind schedule and said to be 81% over budget.
In a letter obtained by the Guardian, senators Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Ed Markey and Adam Schiff, along with representatives John Garamendi and Jamie Raskin, demand answers from Troy Meink, the secretary of the air force.
The letter reminds Meink that, in testimony to the Senate armed services committee, he acknowledged the Qatari plane needs “significant modifications” to meet Air Force One standards. These are likely to include defences against threats ranging from surface-to-air missiles to a nuclear blast, secure and reliable communications systems and protections against counterintelligence.
The Democrats write: “In June, you told Congress that the cost of retrofitting the Qatari Boeing 747-8 ‘wouldn’t be anywhere near’ the reported $1 billion estimate. Do you still believe this to be the case?”
Switzerland’s government will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to decide its next move after its president returned home empty-handed from an 11th-hour trip to Washington aimed at averting a crippling 39% US import tariff on Swiss goods.
An urgent meeting of the seven-member Federal Council - Switzerland’s governing cabinet - will take place in Bern in the early afternoon, the government said a post on X.
Swiss president Karin Keller-Sutter left Washington on Wednesday without a new deal and did not meet with US president Donald Trump or any of his top trade officials, two sources told Reuters.
Her proposal for a 10% tariff rate was rejected by US officials, one of the sources added.
Negotiations between Switzerland and the United States over tariffs will continue, but more time is needed to strike a deal, according to a Swiss source familiar with the discussions.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he may use the National Guard to police the streets of Washington, DC, and a White House official said federal law enforcement would increase its presence in the city this week.
The threat - and the move to follow through on it - is the latest step by Trump and his administration toward taking over running the city that serves as the seat of the US government.
“We have a capital that’s very unsafe,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have to run DC This has to be the best-run place in the country.”
A White House official told Reuters that operational details about the increased federal presence were still being finalized.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa held a telephone call with US president Donald Trump on bilateral trade and the two countries’ trade negotiating teams will have more detailed talks, Ramaphosa’s office said on Thursday.
South Africa tried for months but failed to negotiate a trade deal with Washington ahead of Trump’s deadline. US imports from South Africa now face a 30% duty.
“The two leaders undertook to continue with further engagements, recognising the various trade negotiations the US is currently involved in,” Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement.
“Respective trade negotiating teams will take forward more detailed discussions.”
Kremlin aide says Putin-Trump meeting is likely to take place next week, RIA reports
A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States president Donald Trump is likely to take place next week, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov as saying on Thursday.
More on this development as we get it.
Trump's higher tariffs hit major US trading partners
The US Customs and Border Protection agency began collecting the higher tariffs of 10% to 50% at 12.01am EDT after weeks of suspense over Trump’s final tariff rates and frantic negotiations with major trading partners that sought to lower them.
The leaders of Brazil and India vowed not to be cowed by Trump’s hardline bargaining position, even while their negotiators sought a reprieve from the highest tariff levels.
The new rates will test Trump’s strategy for shrinking US trade deficits without causing massive disruptions to global supply chains or provoking higher inflation and stiff retaliation from trading partners, Reuters reported.
After unveiling his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April, Trump has frequently modified his plan, slapping much higher rates on imports from some countries, including 50% for goods from Brazil, 39% from Switzerland, 35% from Canada and 25% from India. He announced on Wednesday a separate, 25% tariff on Indian goods, to be imposed in 21 days, over India’s purchases of Russian oil.
“RECIPROCAL TARIFFS TAKE EFFECT AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!,” Trump said on Truth Social just ahead of the deadline. “BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, LARGELY FROM COUNTRIES THAT HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE UNITED STATES FOR MANY YEARS, LAUGHING ALL THE WAY, WILL START FLOWING INTO THE USA. THE ONLY THING THAT CAN STOP AMERICA’S GREATNESS WOULD BE A RADICAL LEFT COURT THAT WANTS TO SEE OUR COUNTRY FAIL!”
US national parks staff in ‘survival mode’ to keep parks open amid Trump cuts
Across the US’s fabled but overstretched national parks, unusual scenes are playing out this summer following budget cuts by Donald Trump’s administration. Archeologists are staffing ticket booths, ecologists are covering visitor centers and the superintendents of parks are even cleaning the toilets.
The National Park Service (NPS), responsible for maintaining cherished wildernesses and sites of cultural importance from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, has lost a quarter of its permanent staff since Trump took office in January, with the administration seeking to gut the service’s budget by a third.
But the administration has also ordered parks to remain open and accessible to the public, meaning the NPS has had to scramble remaining staff into public-facing roles to maintain appearances to the crowds of visitors. This has meant much of the behind-the-scenes work to protect endangered species, battle invasive plants, fix crumbling infrastructure or plan for the future needs of the US’s trove of natural wonders has been jettisoned.
“It’s nearly impossible to do the leadership role expected of me,” said one superintendent who heads a park in the western US who didn’t want to be named for fear of retribution from the administration.
“I’m doing everything now. That means I regularly have to make sure the doors are open, I have to run the visitor center, I have to clean the bathrooms. I’d say I’m cleaning the bathroom on a weekly basis now because there’s no one else to do it.”
This sort of triage situation is occurring across the 433 sites and 85m acres – including 63 national parks and an array of battlefields, monuments and cultural sites – that make up the national park system in the US, multiple current and former NPS staff have told the Guardian, risking long-term degradation of prized parks.
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Vance to visit Indiana to discuss redistricting amid Trump pressure on GOP states
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics as JD Vance prepares to visit Indiana on Thursday to discuss redistricting with Republican leaders.
The vice president’s trip comes as Donald Trump ramps up pressure on GOP states to redraw congressional boundaries and give the party more winnable seats in the 2026 midterm elections. In Texas, Democrats who left the state in an effort to block a new congressional map from being implemented say they experienced a bomb threat at their Illinois hotel on Wednesday morning amid the standoff.
Vance is scheduled to hold private meetings with Gov. Mike Braun and others before attending a GOP fundraiser on Thursday night in the solidly Republican state. Braun had earlier told reporters he expects to discuss several matters with the vice president — including redistricting — but said no commitments have been made.
“It looks like it’s going to happen across many Republican states,” Braun said. As Associated Press reports, Indiana is staunchly Republican, outnumbering Democrats in Indiana 7-2, limiting the possibilities of squeezing out another seat.
Opponents of any redistricting attempt are planning to make their objections known on Thursday with protests and a news conference by the two Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation. The constitutionality of the move would also almost certainly be challenged in court.
We’ll bring you all the developments throughout the day. In other news:
Donald Trump has claimed “great progress was made” during talks on ending the war in Ukraine between his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday. The three-hour talks came two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the war or face fresh sanctions.
The White House is placing an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, bringing total tariffs up to 50%, in retaliation for the country’s purchase of oil from Russia, according to an executive order signed on Wednesday morning. India has 21 days to respond to the potential tariffs before they go into effect. The tariffs will be tacked on to a 25% tariff on India Trump set last week as a “penalty” for the country’s trading relationship with Russia.
A new report has found hundreds of reported cases of human rights abuses in US immigration detention centers. The alleged abuses uncovered include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse of detainees, denial of access to attorneys, and child separation.
Trump on Wednesday celebrated a commitment by Apple to increase its investments in US manufacturing by an additional $100bn over the next four years. Apple’s plan to up its domestic investment comes as it seeks to avoid Trump’s threatened tariffs, which would increase the tech giant’s costs as it relies on a complex international supply chain to produce its iPhones.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa held a telephone call with US president Donald Trump on bilateral trade matters, Ramaphosa’s office said in statement.
Switzerland’s government will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to decide its next move after its president returned home empty-handed from an 11th-hour trip to Washington aimed at averting a crippling 39% US import tariff on Swiss goods. An urgent meeting of the seven-member Federal Council - Switzerland’s governing cabinet - will take place in Bern in the early afternoon, the government said a post on X. Swiss president Karin Keller-Sutter left Washington on Wednesday without a new deal and did not meet with Donald Trump or any of his top trade officials, two sources told Reuters.
The man charged with killing the top Democrat in the Minnesota House and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, is expected to plead not guilty when he’s arraigned in federal court on Thursday, his attorney said. Vance Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, was indicted 15 July on six counts of murder, stalking and firearms violations. The murder charges could carry the federal death penalty, though prosecutors say that decision is several months away.
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