Today's recap
Several major supreme court rulings came down on Friday, including on birthright citizenship, LGBT books in schools and Obamacare – the majority of which delivered Donald Trump wins. On the international front, Trump once again cut off trade talks with Canada over its new digital services tax. He said he’d set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods next week. The Senate also voted down the Iran War Powers resolution in a 53-47 vote on Friday evening. The resolution aimed to compel Trump to seek approval from Congress before taking further military action in Iran.
Here’s what else happened today:
Trump hosted top diplomats from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo for a peace agreement between the two countries. The event kicked off with an unusual start when Trump brought an African reporter by his side and told her she was beautiful.
Melissa and Mark Hortman, a Minnesota state representative and her husband, laid in state at the capitol after they were killed by a politically motivated assassin who posed as a police officer.
Border Patrol agents raided a home using an explosive device in Huntington Park, California. Everyone in the house were US citizens, which included a 1-year-old and a 6-year-old.
The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions. Trump has said many of these injunctions have blocked his policies, including his executive order aiming to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said that the US-backed Israeli aid operation in Gaza is “killing people.” This followed calls by Médecins Sans Frontières for Israel to immediately end its siege on Gaza, calling the Israeli-US food distribution scheme “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.
The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador. It is not clear when the deportation might occur.
The supreme court ruled 6-3 in favor of Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland who sued to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read. The justices in a 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s refusal to require Montgomery County’s public schools to provide an option to opt out of these classes.
The supreme court ruled against challengers to a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users. The adult entertainment industry argued that the measure violates the free speech rights of adults.
The supreme court preserved a key element of the Obamacare law that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost to patients.
Two senators jumped the aisle on Friday on the vote over whether to curb Donald Trump’s authority to wage war with Iran. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, voted to back the resolution. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, voted against.
The resolution failed to pass the Senate, ending in a 53–47 tally. The aim of the resolution was to compel Trump to seek authorization from Congress before taking military action. It came with the backdrop of Trump backing Israel and ordering bomb strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this month.
Fetterman explained his no vote to reporters on Thursday, saying: “I’m going to vote no on that simply because I would never want to restrict any future president, Republican or Democrat, to do this kind of military exercise.”
On the Senate floor on Friday, Paul said the reason he was backing the resolution was because the power to declare war is only meant for Congress. “The Constitution is clear: Congress, not the president, has the authority to declare war,” Paul said.
Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who sponsored the resolution, also harkened back to the founders’ drafting of the constitution when he spoke to his colleagues on Friday. He spoke about how George Washington was president at the time.
“As much as they respected leaders like George Washington, they said war is too big a decision. It’s too big a decision for one person,” Kaine said. “So, they wrote a constitution that said the United States should not be at war without a vote of Congress.”
Updated
Senate votes down Iran war powers resolution
Senate Democrats were unsuccessful in getting a resolution passed to limit Donald Trump from single-handedly escalating the war with Iran.
The resolution was brought by Tim Kaine of Virginia and aimed to compel Trump to seek authorization from Congress before taking any further military action.
“Congress declares war,” Kaine said on the Senate floor on Friday. “Once declared, the president is the commander-in-chief.”
Despite nearly all Democrats backing the resolution, they still didn’t have the votes. The tally came in 53–47. One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted with the Democrats, and one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against the resolution.
Trump said on Friday that Iran had halted its nuclear ambitions after the bombings by the US and Israel. But, he said, he would “absolutely” continue to bomb the country’s nuclear sites if he believed it was once again enriching uranium.
“Time will tell,” Trump said at the White House. “But I don’t believe that they’re going to go back into nuclear any time soon.”
Updated
Melissa and Mark Hortman, and their dog Gilbert, lay in state in the Minnesota state capitol rotunda on Friday.
Their wooden caskets, and Gilbert’s golden urn with pawprints on it, were surrounded by trees and ferns, a nod to the greenery Melissa, an avid gardener and advocate for the environment, held dear in her personal life and in her governance.
The Hortmans were killed by a politically motivated assassin who posed as a police officer and came to their home, and the homes of other lawmakers, injuring another and his wife. The killings and subsequent manhunt unsettled the state.
On Friday, Minnesotans lined up by the hundreds outside and inside the state capitol to pay their respects. One by one, they moved toward the rotunda. Many wiped away tears. Others did the sign of the cross. Some put their hands on their hearts. The mourners included former president Joe Biden.
Read more:
Donald Trump’s praise of a female reporter from Angola echoes a similar interaction with an Irish reporter during his first term.
On Friday, the president hosted an event at the White House with top diplomats to sign a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But it started off with the interaction between Trump and the reporter.
Trump had invited the reporter, whose name is Hariana Veras and who works for the national broadcaster of Angola, to stand next to him and speak to the room. She went on to compliment him and the work he was doing to bring peace.
“You are beautiful,” Trump responded. “I’m not allowed to say that, you know, that could be the end of my political career but I said it anyway.”
In 2017, in a similar event, Trump was speaking on the phone with Ireland’s newly elected taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. Reporters from the Irish media were with Trump in the Oval Office. During the call, Trump told Varadkar that he had “a lot of these beautiful Irish press” in the room.
He then singled out Caitríona Perry, asking her to come forward. While still on the phone with Varadkar, Trump said: “She has a nice smile on her face, so I’m sure she treats you well.”
In his second term in office, Trump has stacked the press core with favorable reporters. This is a stark departure from White House briefing room tradition. His administration now mandates which reporters can attend Oval Office events and it has packed White House briefings with pro-Trump outlets, including One America News, Turning Point USA and the Daily Wire.
Updated
Trump brings on Angolan journalist to praise him at White House event to mark Rwanda-DRC peace agreement
Donald Trump hosted top diplomats from Rwanda and DR Congo for the signing of a peace agreement between the two countries on Friday. The African nations have been in a conflict since 2021 that has led to the deaths and displacement of thousands.
While Trump called the peace agreement “a glorious triumph”, the war reportedly shows little signs of abating on the ground, according to a report by NBC earlier this month.
Trump has touted the US’s role as a peacemaker and said the agreement today was ushered through by Massad Boulos, a senior adviser for Africa for the state department and the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany Trump. The president said on Friday that the US stands to get “a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo” for its efforts.
The event, which took place at the White House, kicked off with an unusual start. Trump asked Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary, to introduce a friend. Leavitt said she knew a reporter from the “continent of Africa”, who had a “story to share”. Trump then invited the reporter to stand next him, saying “Why don’t you come up here and talk, so they can see.”
The reporter is Hariana Veras, who works for the national broadcaster of Angola. Veras praised Trump for his work on the peace agreement and said that African presidents have told her he should be nominated for a Nobel peace prize.
When Veras was done speaking, Trump told her that Leavitt had said she was beautiful. He then added: “You are beautiful … I wish I had more reporters like you”.
Immediately after, the White House clipped a video of Veras’s comments and posted it to its social media account on X.
Updated
Agents blast way into California home of woman and small children, footage suggests
Federal agents appear to have blasted their way into a residential home in Huntington Park, California. A video released by the local NBC station shows what appear to be border patrol agents setting up an explosive device near the house and then detonating it – causing a window to be shattered. Then around a dozen agents charged toward the home.
Jenny Ramirez, who lives in the house with her one-year-old and six-year-old kids, told NBC through tears that it was one of the loudest explosions she heard in her life.
“I told them, ‘You guys didn’t have to do this, you scared by son, my baby,’” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said she and her children are all US citizens. The agents were reportedly searching for Ramirez’s boyfriend who was reportedly involved in a car crash with a truck carrying federal agents last week. He also lives in the home and is a US citizen, according to NBC.
Updated
The day so far
Donald Trump has abruptly cut off trade talks with Canada over its new digital services tax coming into effect on Monday that will impact US technology firms and said that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.
Trump said he had not ruled out attacking Iran again and said he has abandoned plans to drop sanctions on Tehran.
The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.
Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “a travesty for the rule of law” and “an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution” in a scathing dissent.
Trump called the ruling “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”. He said his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide. One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.
US attorney general Pam Bondi said the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October but said today’s ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, which the administration is “thrilled” about.
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said that the US-backed Israeli aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe”, giving a blunt and grave assessment: “It’s killing people.” Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled”, aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.
Guterres’s intervention followed calls earlier today from Médecins Sans Frontières for the scheme to be immediately dismantled and for Israel to end its siege on Gaza, calling the Israeli-US food distribution scheme “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”. Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading toward desperately needed food, killing hundreds of starving Palestinian people in recent weeks. The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.
The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge yesterday. It is not clear when the deportation might occur or whether it would happen before the criminal case accusing him of smuggling migrants into the United States is complete. The justice department said there are no “imminent plans” to remove Ábrego García from the United States.
The supreme court ruled in favor of Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland who sued to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read in a landmark case involving the intersection of religion and LGBT rights. The justices in a 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s refusal to require Montgomery County’s public schools to provide an option to opt out of these classes. Our story is here.
The supreme court also ruled against challengers to a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users in an effort to protect minors after the adult entertainment industry argued that the measure violates the free speech rights of adults. Story here.
The supreme court also preserved a key element of the Obamacare law that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost to patients. Read more here.
Trump says he will set a new tariff rate for Canadian goods within next week
As well as abruptly cutting off trade talks with Canada over its new tax that will impact US technology firms, Trump said that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.
“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The move plunges US relations with its second-largest trading partner back into chaos after a period of relative calm – only last week Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said he had agreed with Trump that their two nations should try to wrap up a new economic and security deal within 30 days.
Canada is the US’s second-largest trading partner after Mexico, buying $349.4bn of US goods last year and exporting $412.7bn to the US, according to US Census Bureau data.
In Trump’s surprise announcement that he was terminating trade talks with Canada, he accused Ottawa of “copying the European Union” with an “egregious” digital services tax on US tech firms.
He wrote on Truth Social: “They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”
We’ve yet to hear Canadian PM Mark Carney’s reaction to Trump’s outburst, which imperils a trading relationship that, according to the office of the US trade representative, totalled about $762bn last year.
The tax, which will take effect on 30 June and be applied retroactively from 2022, will impact both domestic and international companies, meaning American giants Amazon, Google, Meta, Airbnb and Uber will have to start payments from Monday.
Last week Ottawa refused to delay the tax in the face of mounting pressure and opposition from the Trump administration during trade negotiations.
Updated
Trump says he would consider bombing Iran again and drops sanctions relief plan
At the press conference earlier, Donald Trump sharply criticized Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, dropped plans to lift sanctions on Iran and said he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran is enriching uranium to worrisome levels.
Trump reacted sternly to Khamenei’s first remarks after a 12-day conflict with Israel that ended when the US launched strikes last weekend against Iranian nuclear sites.
Khamenei said Iran “slapped America in the face” by launching a – largely symbolic and forewarned – attack against a major US base in Qatar following last weekend’s US bombing raid. He also said Iran would never surrender.
Trump said he had spared Khamenei’s life. US officials told Reuters on 15 June that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader. In a Truth Social post, he said:
His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life. I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH.
Trump also said that in recent days he had been working on the possible removal of sanctions on Iran to give it a chance for a speedy recovery. He told reporters today he has now abandoned that effort.
I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.
Trump said he did not rule out attacking Iran again. When asked about the possibility of new bombing of Iranian nuclear sites if deemed necessary at some point, he replied:
Sure, without question, absolutely.
Updated
Trump border czar once again calls for prosecution of anyone who impedes immigration enforcement, including lawmakers
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan spoke at the end of the morning session at the Faith & Freedom Conference in Washington DC to applause and a standing ovation as he called for the prosecution of anyone who impeded his immigration enforcement, including lawmakers.
Homan opened up by describing immigration enforcement as a moral duty – meant to stop the deaths, sexual assault and drug trafficking at the border. “In my 40 years I’ve seen a lot of terrible things,” he said. “Secure the border, save lives.”
In a wide ranging, off the cuff speech, Homan touted his deportation figures and the lack of crossings at the border while defending Ice raids against non-criminals. “They’re in the country illegally so they’re on the table too,” he said. He attributed some of those arrests to sanctuary cities, where he said the lack of ability to arrest undocumented people in jail led to the increase of collateral arrests when Ice searched for them on the streets.
Homan poked at protests, calling the Los Angeles protests misguided and misinformed and applauding Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard. He also called the protestors in his lake house town “morons” – those protests were followed by Ice releasing a family.
Homan spent a good amount of his speech denouncing Biden’s policies and calling for the prosecution of anyone, including lawmakers who attempted to intervene with Ice enforcement. He said Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security under Joe Biden, should “go to jail”.
You can hate Ice, you can hate me, I don’t give a shit. You can not agree with our priorities, but you better not cross that line.
At the en,d Homan turned to his personal relationship with Trump, saying he respected the president as much as he does his own father.
Updated
Lawyers for Kilmar Ábrego García have asked the judge to keep him in jail over deportation concerns. Prosecutors have agreed with a request by Ábrego García’s lawyers to delay his Tennessee jail release.
Ábrego García’s lawyers asked a judge for the delay Friday because of “contradictory statements” by the Trump administration over whether he’ll be deported upon release. A judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Ábrego García to await trial on human smuggling charges. The judge has been holding off over concerns immigration officials would try to deport him.
The justice department says it intends to try Ábrego García on the smuggling charges. A justice department attorney said earlier there were plans to deport him but didn’t say when. The Maryland construction worker previously was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Updated
US representative Nydia Velázquez from New York called the supreme court ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions “an attack on the very foundation of our nation”. She wrote on X:
“The Supreme Court just opened the door for Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship. As Justice Sotomayor warned in her dissent, ‘No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.’ This ruling is an attack on the very foundation of our nation.”
Representative Mark Takano of California expressed similar alarm. He wrote on X:
“Today’s troubling ruling by the Supreme Court means that Trump’s un-Constitutional executive order denying many Americans their birthright citizenship will go into effect for anyone without the means to file a lawsuit to protect themselves.”
Trump says US will terminate trade talks with Canada over technology tax
Trump has accused Canada of a “direct and blatant attack” on the US after being informed that the country plans to tax US technology companies. Trump says the US will be “terminating all discussions on trade with Canada” as a result.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country.
They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”
Updated
Environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit to block the “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades.
The lawsuit, filed Friday on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades organization, seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court says there is also supposed to be an opportunity for public comment.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis said Friday on Fox and Friends that the detention center is set to begin processing people who entered the US illegally as soon as next week.
Trump officials to terminate temporary protected status for 500,000 Haitians in US
The Trump administration is moving to terminate Temporary Protected Status for half a million Haitians, claiming that Haiti is a “safe” country to return to, despite the reality that large portions of the country have been overcome by gangs and civil governance has collapsed.
The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that conditions in Haiti have improved, and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for Temporary Protected Status, which grants deportation protections and work permits to people from countries experiencing turmoil.
“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”
Updated
Summary of the day so far:
The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, appears to have delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.
Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the supreme court’s majority decision “a travesty for the rule of law”, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered a scathing dissent.
Trump called the supreme court’s decision “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”.
Trump said his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide. One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.
In a press briefing US attorney general Pam Bondi was asked whether the administration is going to try to implement Trump’s order banning birthright citizenship in states where there isn’t a legal challenge. Bondi said the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October but that Friday’s ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, adding that the administration is “thrilled” about this.
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo reportedly plans to run as an independent candidate in New York City’s mayoral race, days after finding himself bested in the Democratic primary by progressive insurgent candidate Zohran Mamdani.
The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but reportedly does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March.
Trump reiterated that Tehran wants to meet following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend, but gave no further details.
Updated
Trump says 9 July trade deal date is not fixed date
Trump says his 9 July trade deadline was not a fixed date, adding that it could be sooner or later than that date, when wider US tariffs are set to be re-imposed if deals are not reached.
We can do whatever we want. We could extend it. We could make it shorter. I’d like to make it shorter. I’d like to just send letters out to everybody: Congratulations, you’re paying 25%.
Earlier, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said trade deals could be done by Labor Day.
Trump thinks something will happen to 'settle' Russia's war in Ukraine
Trump says he thinks something will happen in Russia’s war in Ukraine that would get it “settled”, citing his recent call with Russian president Vladimir Putin but offers no other details.
We’re working on that one. President Putin called up and he said, I’d love to help you with Iran. I said, do me a favor: I’ll handle Iran. Help me with Russia. We got to get that one settled. And I think something’s going to happen there.
Trump say US to get a lot of mineral rights from Congo
Trump says the US will get a lot of mineral rights from Congo under an agreement between that country and Rwanda that he will promote during an Oval Office meeting and signing later in the day.
Updated
I’m at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington DC – a large conservative gathering featuring high-profile Republican speakers.
On the back of the supreme court rulings this morning, governor Glenn Youngkin, of the swing state Virginia, is currently extolling the ruling in Mahmoud v Taylor that says parents should be able to opt out of school activities centered around LGBTQ+ issues.
“It is right to side with the parents,” said the governor, whose state is about to see a tense election later this year. Youngkin also applauded Trump’s immigration policies, saying his state detained at least 2,000 “criminals”. He also weighed in on the Iran strikes, and supported the intervention, saying “peace through strength”.
“I am here today with a strong warning,” he said. “If we don’t stay focused it can all change … elections have consequences.”
“Just look at what happened in New York,” he added later, referencing Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary. “They nominated a mayoral candidate who would make Bernie Sanders blush. You know what his big idea is: government-run grocery stores. Imagine this: the charm of the Department of Motor Vehicles combined with the efficiency of Venezuela’s [Nicolás] Maduro.”
“The other side has nominated a self-described democratic socialist,” he continued. “That is where they will go.”
Updated
Trump says he believes Spain will come through on a Nato commitment for member nations to spending 5% on their common defense.
Spain has been reluctant to commit to that level of funding, which was agreed upon at the Nato summit in The Hague earlier this week.
Updated
Trump to look at protected status for Salvadorians
Trump says his administration would examine ending temporary protected status (TPS) for individuals from El Salvador, but gives no other details.
Asked why he has not canceled TPS for El Salvador, which his administration is paying to detain migrants deported from the US, Trump says: “We’ll take a look. We’ve had a great relationship with El Salvador. They have a fantastic leader … We’ll talk about El Salvador.”
Updated
Trump says it 'would be great' if Powell lowers rate
Trump says it “would be great” if Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell lowered interest rates.
The only problem we have is we have a Fed guy that doesn’t understand what’s happening. And it would be great if it lower the rate, because we’d be able to borrow a lot cheaper.
Trump reiterates that Iran wants to meet following strikes
Trump reiterates that Tehran wants to meet following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear last weekend, but gives no further details.
He repeats his claim that Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated”, saying “we finished them off”, and repeats his attacks on “fake news” coverage of an early DIA intelligence assessment that found the damage was much less extensive than that and and has likely only set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months.
He also says that he would want the International Atomic Energy Agency or another trusted entity to have full rights to conduct inspections in Iran.
Trump says he plans to send a letter soon telling countries their tariff rate
Trump says he plans to send out a letter over the next week and a half telling countries what US tariff rate they will have to pay.
He also says that he’s working on trade deals with several countries, including India.
Updated
Trump says he has “great respect” for conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett – who has taken a lot of heat recently from Maga types – and says her decision was “brilliantly written”.
Supreme court likely to rule on birthright citizenship in October, says Bondi
Bondi is asked whether – given that the supreme court didn’t rule today on the the underlying constitutionality of Trump’s birthright citizenship order – the administration is going to try to implement the order banning in states where there isn’t a legal challenge.
Bondi says the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October.
However, she adds, the supreme court ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, adding that the administration is “thrilled” about this.
For example, she says, “if there is a birthright citizenship case in Oregon, it will only impact the plaintiff in Oregon and not the entire country”.
Updated
Bondi claims injunctions were allowing district court judges “to be emperors”.
Attorney general Pam Bondi is speaking now, immediately attacking “rogue judges” and “lawless injunctions”.
Updated
Trump also says he wants to press on with “ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries”, and numerous others.
Updated
Trump says he will 'promptly file' to press on with policies including effort to end birthright citizenship
Trump says thanks to the decision, his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide.
One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.
Updated
Trump again highlights that his administration has been “hit with more nationwide injunctions than were issued than in the entire 20th century together – think about it, the entire 20th century, me”.
Trump repeats his usual attacks on “radical left judges”, saying the use of nationwide injunctions was “a grave threat to democracy” and a “colossal abuse of power”.
Trump calls supreme court ruling on nationwide injunctions a 'monumental victory'
Donald Trump calls the supreme court’s decision “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”.
Updated
'It is killing people': UN chief says US-backed Gaza aid operation is 'inherently unsafe'
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres has said that the US-backed Israeli aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe”, giving a blunt and grave assessment:
It is killing people.
Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled”, aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.
He told reporters:
People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence.
If follows calls earlier today from Médecins Sans Frontières for the scheme to be immediately dismantled and for Israel to end its siege on Gaza, calling the Israeli-US food distribution scheme “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.
Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading toward desperately needed food, killing hundreds of starving Palestinian people in recent weeks.
My colleague Jane Clinton is covering the latest on this here:
Updated
Supreme court rules against challengers to Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify age of users
The supreme court has ruled against challengers to a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users in an effort to protect minors after the adult entertainment industry argued that the measure violates the free speech rights of adults.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling authored by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, upheld a lower court’s decision allowing enforcement of the Republican-led state’s age-checking mandate. The law likely does not violate the US constitution’s first amendment safeguard against government abridgment of speech, the court ruled.
The court’s conservative justices were in the majority. Its three liberal justices dissented.
Updated
Supreme court decision on nationwide injuctions a 'travesty for rule of law', says liberal justice
Here’s more from the liberal justice’s dissents on Trump v CASA, Inc.
Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the supreme court’s majority decision “a travesty for the rule of law”, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered a scathing dissent, writing:
The court’s decision to permit the executive to violate the constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law. Given the critical role of the judiciary in maintaining the rule of law ... it is odd, to say the least, that the court would grant the executive’s wish to be freed from the constraints of law by prohibiting district courts from ordering complete compliance with the constitution.”
Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered a particularly sharp and personal rebuke directed at Jackson in the majority opinion, writing:
We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the constitution itself.”
Updated
Trump to hold news conference following massive supreme court win on nationwide injunctions
Donald Trump is due to hold a press conference shortly at 11.30am ET at the White House, and he’s left us some clues as to what it will pertain to. This is from Truth Social moments ago.
GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court! Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard. It had to do with the babies of slaves (same year!), not the SCAMMING of our Immigration process. Congratulations to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Solicitor General John Sauer, and the entire DOJ. News Conference at the White House, 11:30 A.M. EST.
Despite how Trump is framing this, while the supreme court’s ruling in Trump v CASA, Inc will have serious and wide-reaching implications for the executive branch’s power, the court’s opinion on the constitutionality of whether some US-born children can be deprived of citizenship remains undecided and the fate of the president’s order to overturn birthright citizenship rights was left unclear.
However, the court’s ruling will certainly boost Trump’s potential to enforce citizenship restrictions, in this and other cases in future, in states where courts had not specifically blocked them, creating a chaotic patchwork.
My colleague Joseph Gedeon has the story:
Updated
Sotomayor accuses Trump administration of 'gamesmanship' in scathing dissent
Here’s more from the scathing dissent in Trump v CASA, Inc of liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, where she wrote that Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order has been deemed “patently unconstitutional” by every court that examined it.
So, instead of trying to argue that the executive order is likely constitutional, the administration “asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone”, Sotomayor wrote.
“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it,” she wrote. “Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along.”
Updated
US supreme court rules schools must let kids opt out of hearing LGBTQ+ books
The supreme court has ruled in favor of Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland who sued to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read in a landmark case involving the intersection of religion and LGBT rights.
The justices in a 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s refusal to require Montgomery County’s public schools to provide an option to opt out of these classes.
The lower court had rejected the argument made by a group of parents who sued the school district that its policy prohibiting opt-outs violated the Constitution’s first amendment protections for the free exercise of religion.
“Today, we hold that the parents have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction. A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” wrote conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the decision.
The court’s conservative justices were in the majority and its liberal justices dissented from the ruling.
Updated
Sotomayor: ruling on nationwide injunctions an 'open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution'
In a rare move, Justice Sonia Sotomayor read from the bench parts of her dissent in Trump v CASA, Inc which the other two liberal justices joined, taking nearly 20 minutes in total. It signifies the gravity and depth of her concerns over the court’s ruling.
In dissent, Sotomayor wrote:
The court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution.
This is so, she said, because the administration may be able to enforce a policy even when it has been challenged and found to be unconstitutional by a lower court.
Updated
Supreme court rules key provision of Obamacare constitutional
The supreme court has preserved a key element of the Obamacare law that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost to patients.
The justices in a 6-3 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that the US Preventive Services Task Force, which under the 2010 law formally called the Affordable Care Act has a major role in choosing what services will be covered, is composed of members who were not validly appointed.
Here’s my colleague Jessica Glenza’s report:
Updated
Here is the full text of the opinion.
Supreme court limits judges' power on nationwide injunctions in apparent win for Trump
The supreme court appears to have delivered Donald Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, granted a request by the Trump administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state that halted enforcement of his birthright citizenship directive while litigation challenging the policy plays out.
It leaves unclear the fate of Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, with the conservative majority leaving open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide. The court ordered lower courts to reconsider the scope of their injunctions and specified that Trump’s order cannot take effect until 30 days after today’s ruling.
Furthermore, this decision would mean that going forward, judges will only be able to grant relief to the parties who bring a particular lawsuit and may not extend those decisions to protect other individuals without going through the process of converting a suit into a class action.
While the court didn’t rule on the legality of Trump’s order purporting to end birthright citizenship, the three liberal justices said the president’s directive was clearly unlawful and “patently unconstitutional”. I’ll bring you more on that soon.
Updated
The three liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Supreme court limits federal judges' power to issue nationwide injunctions
Well, it looks like the supreme court has decided 6-3 to limit the power of federal judges to grant nationwide injunctions.
The ruling, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, argues that these “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts”. She wrote:
When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too. The Court today puts an end to the ‘increasingly common’ practice of federal courts issuing universal injunctions.
Updated
Further to that, Politico has a very helpful explainer on the uncertainty around whether we’ll get the blockbuster opinion everyone’s waiting for – of course Trump’s effort to end automatic birthright citizenship – today.
There’s already uncertainty about what the justices will actually decide in a case tied to Donald Trump’s effort to end automatic birthright citizenship — but we also don’t know for sure whether the court will even issue a formal opinion or opinions on the matter.
That’s because the case did not come up through the court’s usual process for cases argued before the justices: the merits docket. The case, Trump v. CASA, is actually a trio of emergency applications the Trump administration submitted to the justices in March seeking to sharply cut back nationwide injunctions judges issued against Trump’s executive order purporting to end the right to birthright citizenship in the US.
In a twist, the justice department did not ask the court for a quick decision on the legality of Trump’s anti-birthright order. (Several lower courts have ruled it blatantly unconstitutional because it conflicts with the text of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.) Instead, the administration is attempting to use the dispute as a way to get the supreme Ccurt to declare that judges can’t issue broad orders that protect people with no connection to a pending lawsuit. In an unusual move, the justices agreed to hear arguments on the emergency applications and did so last month.
The oral arguments revealed no obvious consensus on the court about how to proceed or whether the case is a good vehicle to address broader concerns about the scope of nationwide injunctions. There were even some indications that the justices might want to dig into the birthright citizenship issue, which was not the focus of the legal briefs.
Because the case is up as an emergency matter, the court could forgo an opinion and simply deny the applications - at any time - in a terse order with little or no explanation of its reasoning. It could also decide it wants to get full briefing and argument on the substance of the birthright citizenship issue this fall and punt on the injunctions issue until then, leaving Trump’s birthright policy on hold.
Updated
Supreme court begins releasing decisions on last day of term
It’s almost 10am ET and the supreme court is about to open the final official opinion day of this term. We’re expecting a handful of big decisions from the high court, including whether schools can require students to participate in lessons that include LGBTQ+ content, whether a 2023 Texas law can require pornography websites to verify the ages of their users, the future of Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district, and others. And we might also get a decision on Trump’s attempt to sidestep the constitution to limit birthright citizenship, but we also might not. Stay tuned.
Updated
Trump administration plans second deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García, but not to El Salvador
The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge yesterday.
It is not clear when the deportation might occur or whether it would happen before the criminal case accusing him of smuggling migrants into the United States is complete.
Justice department lawyer Jonathan Guynn said during a hearing in federal court in Maryland that the United States does not have “imminent plans” to remove Ábrego García from the United States.
If deported, Ábrego García would be sent to a third country and not El Salvador, Guynn said. He did not name the country.
Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran national, was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador in March despite a 2019 judicial decision barring him from being sent there because of a risk of persecution.
The Trump administration brought Ábrego García back to the US earlier this month to face federal criminal charges accusing him of transporting migrants living illegally in the US. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case of Ábrego García, 29, who had been living in Maryland with his US citizen wife and their young son, has become a flashpoint over Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.
The federal judge overseeing Ábrego García’s criminal case has ordered him released ahead of trial as early as today, but the Trump administration has said it plans to immediately take him into immigration custody.
His fate would then be unclear. Ábrego García’s lawyers have asked that Ábrego García be kept in Maryland and that the justice department, which is prosecuting the criminal case, and the Department of Homeland Security, which handles immigration proceedings, ensure he is not deported while the criminal case remains pending.
Federal judges in Maryland, where Ábrego García is suing over the March deportation, and Tennessee, where criminal charges were filed, are both yet to rule on his requests.
Robert McGuire, the top federal prosecutor in Nashville, Tennessee, told US magistrate judge Barbara Holmes at a hearing in the criminal case on Wednesday that he would coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security as best as he could but ultimately could not control their decisions about where to house Ábrego García and whether to deport him.
Updated
As we wait for the supreme court’s last official decision day of the term to get going at 10am ET, the case we’re all waiting for is the one we can’t be sure is coming, writes Politico. Per this morning’s Playbook:
Trump v. Casa started as a challenge to Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, but became an emergency appeal that took on a central legal question of Trump’s second term: “the Trump administration’s request to rein in the power of federal district court judges to block federal policies on a nationwide basis,” Politico’s legal reporter Josh Gerstein writes. “The court could tell judges to narrow those injunctions and future ones in other cases, or set some criteria for them, or could snub the administration by turning down the request.”
Or even this: The court could instead decide to punt the restraining order matter, and deal with the birthright citizenship question first. “That could push the whole fight off until sometime this fall, after the justices return from their summer break,” Josh writes.
The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said on Friday he was confident magnets would flow from China after Washington reached a rare earth deal with Beijing, Reuters reports.
“I am confident now that we as agreed, the magnets will flow,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business Network, adding that the US had put in countermeasures after China slowed the delivery of critical minerals.
“So what we’re seeing here is a de-escalation under President Trump’s leadership.”
Cuomo to stay in NYC mayoral race despite Mamdani besting him in primary – report
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo reportedly plans to run as an independent candidate in New York City’s mayoral race, days after finding himself bested in the Democratic primary by progressive insurgent candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Several news outlets reported late last night that Cuomo, 67, part of a long and powerful political dynasty in New York, would not withdraw after conceding the Democratic primary to democratic socialist newcomer Mamdani, who is now the favorite in the race and could become the city’s first Muslim mayor at the general election in November.
Cuomo is now expected to continue as an independent candidate on a “Fight and Deliver” ballot line. But Cuomo has not decided whether to actively campaign in the coming months.
The former governor, who stepped down in 2021 in the face of allegations of sexual harassment and bullying in the workplace, now joins the embattled incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, a Democrat who has relaunched his campaign as an independent.
Updated
Senate Republicans seek agreement as Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' in tatters one week out from 4 July deadline
US Senate Republicans are trying to reach a consensus over Donald Trump’s sprawling tax-cut and spending bill, including proposed healthcare cuts that have worried some of their more populist-minded members, Reuters reports.
Senate majority leader John Thune has the difficult task of keeping his 53-member majority in line, as they use a parliamentary manoeuvre to bypass unified Democratic opposition to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which would extend his 2017 tax cuts and boost spending on border security and the military.
Thune’s task was further complicated this week as the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan referee, informed Republicans that more than $250bn in healthcare cuts in the Republican bill did not qualify for inclusion under long-standing budget rules.
An earlier version of the bill passed by the House last month was forecast to add about $3tn to the federal government’s $36.2tn debt.
Trump yesterday expressed “hope” that the bill would pass before 4 July.
Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser, said the president remains “highly confident” that Congress will pass the bill by the holiday.
However, it remains tight for GOP leaders trying to get the legislation over the line in time – just three Republican “no” votes in either chamber would be enough to scuttle the bill.
Updated
Iranian woman, who has lived in US for 47 years, taken by Ice while gardening
A 64-year-old Iranian woman, who has lived in the US for 47 years, was detained by immigration agents on Sunday morning while gardening outside her home in New Orleans.
According to a witness, plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles handcuffed Madonna “Donna” Kashanian and transported her to a Mississippi jail before transferring her to the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile, reports Nola.
Kashanian arrived in the US in 1978 on a student visa and later applied for asylum, citing fears of persecution due to her father’s ties to the US-backed Shah of Iran. Her asylum request was ultimately denied, but she was granted a stay of removal on the condition she comply with immigration requirements, a condition her family says she always met.
She has no criminal record but remains in Ice custody.
The timing of Kashanian’s detention came just hours after US airstrikes in Iran. Federal officials did not comment on her specific case, though the DHS released a statement highlighting the arrests of 11 Iranians nationwide over the weekend, according to Nola.
Ice also arrested two Iranian LSU students in Baton Rouge at their off-campus apartment earlier this week. Last week, Ice announced that they arrested 84 people during a raid at a south-west Louisiana racetrack. Of the 84, Ice said “at least two” had criminal records.
Statistics from early June, previously reported on by the Guardian, demonstrated an 807% increase in arrests of people without criminal histories since before Donald Trump’s second inauguration this January. Data suggests Ice is holding about 59,000 detainees in facilities across the country.
Updated
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that the US navy is renaming USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson.
In a post on X, Hegseth said:
We are taking the politics out of ship naming. We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead we’re naming the ship after a US navy congressional medal of honor recipient, as it should be. People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in.
My colleague Maya Yang reported earlier this month that Hegseth had ordered the navy to strip the name of the prominent gay rights activist and navy veteran Harvey Milk from a ship during the middle of June. The timing of the announcement, during Pride month – a month meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community – was reportedly intentional.
The vessel was initially named after Milk in 2016 during the Barack Obama administration. Milk was a prominent gay rights activist who served in the US navy during the Korean war. He later went on to run for office in California where he won a seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors. As one of the US’s first openly gay politicians, Milk became a forefront figure of the gay rights movement across the country before his assassination in 1978 by a former city supervisor.
Here’s Maya’s earlier report.
Updated
US supreme court expected to issue rulings in six cases on last day of term
The US supreme court is meeting on Friday to decide the final six cases of its term, including Donald Trump’s bid to enforce his executive order denying birthright citizenship to US-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident (see earlier post).
As posted earlier, it is also to deliver a ruling on LBGTQ+ books in schools.
The justices take the bench at 10am for their last public session until the start of their new term on 6 October.
Decisions also are expected in several other important cases including:
A bid by Louisiana officials and civil rights groups to preserve an electoral map that raised the number of Black-majority congressional districts in the state and prompted a challenge by non-Black voters. State officials and advocacy groups have appealed a lower court’s ruling that found the map laying out Louisiana’s six US House of Representatives districts – with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously – violated the US constitution’s promise of equal protection, Reuters reports.
Free speech rights are at the centre of a case over a Texas law aimed at blocking children from seeing online pornography. Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well, AP reports.
Updated
The Trump administration is readying a package of executive actions aimed at boosting energy supply to power the US expansion of artificial intelligence, according to four sources familiar with the planning, Reuters reports.
US and China are locked in a technological arms race and with it secure an economic and military edge. The huge amount of data processing behind AI requires a rapid increase in power supplies that are straining utilities and grids in many states.
The moves under consideration include making it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid, and providing federal land on which to build the data centres needed to expand AI technology, according to the sources.
The administration will also release an AI action plan and schedule public events to draw public attention to the efforts, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Training large-scale AI models requires a huge amount of electricity, and the industry’s growth is driving the first big increase in US power demand in decades.
US-backed Gaza food distribution scheme is 'slaughter masquerading' as aid, says MSF
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said that “the Israeli-US food distribution scheme in Gaza is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid” as it called on the Israeli authorities to dismantle the scheme and end its siege on the devastated territory.
Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading toward desperately needed food, killing hundreds of Palestinian people in recent weeks.
Israel wants the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – an Israeli-backed logistics group – to replace a system coordinated by the UN and international aid groups. Along with the US, it accuses Hamas of stealing aid, without offering evidence.
The UN and aid agencies have denied that there has been any significant theft of their supplies by Hamas.
In a press release published on its website today, MSF wrote:
The Israeli-US food distribution scheme in Gaza, Palestine, launched one month ago, is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies.
With over 500 people killed and nearly 4,000 wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled…
This disaster has been orchestrated by the Israeli-US proxy operating under the name Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The way supplies are distributed forces thousands of Palestinians, who have been starved by an over 100 day-long Israeli siege, to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies.
These sites hinder women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, from accessing aid and people are killed and wounded in the chaotic process.
You can follow more on the crisis over on our Middle East live blog:
Updated
We have more from Reuters on Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Russia, who is leaving Moscow.
The departure of the career diplomat appointed under the administration of former president Joe Biden comes as Russia and the US discuss a potential reset in their ties which sharply deteriorated after Moscow launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022.
Donald Trump has said there are potentially big investment deals to be struck, but is growing increasingly frustrated that his efforts to broker a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine have so far not resulted in a meaningful ceasefire.
“I am proud to have represented my country in Moscow during such a challenging time. As I leave Russia, I know that my colleagues at the embassy will continue to work to improve our relations and maintain ties with the Russian people,” the embassy cited Tracy as saying in a statement.
The embassy said earlier this month that Tracy, who arrived in Moscow in January 2023 and was greeted by protesters chanting anti-US slogans when she went to the foreign ministry to present her credentials, would leave her post soon.
Her successor has not been publicly named.
Updated
Mamdani's NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say
Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the 11 September 2001 attacks, advocates said on Friday.
There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents, Reuters reports.
That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a statement.
Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day-long time-frame.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday’s primary after former New York governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat.
Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election.
“We call on public officials of every party – including those whose allies are amplifying these smears – to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action.
Updated
US supreme court expected to deliver ruling on birthright citizenship on last day of term
The US supreme court may rule on Friday on Donald Trump’s attempt to broadly enforce his executive order to limit birthright citizenship, a move that would affect thousands of babies born each year as the president seeks a major shift in how the US constitution has long been understood, Reuters reports.
The administration has made an emergency request for the justices to scale back injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts blocking Trump’s directive nationwide.
The judges found that Trump’s order likely violates citizenship language in the US constitution’s 14th amendment.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a “green card” holder.
Updated
The United States has postponed sanctions against the Russian-owned Serbian oil company NIS for a fourth time until 29 July, Serbia’s mining and energy minister Dubravka Đedović Handanović said on Friday.
NIS has so far secured three reprieves, the last of which was due to expire later on Friday.
“Sanctions have been formally postponed ... overnight we have received written confirmations ... after a hard and tiring diplomatic struggle,” she told reporters.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control initially placed sanctions on Russia’s oil sector on 10 January, and gave Gazprom Neft 45 days to exit ownership of NIS.
The United States Department of Treasury did not reply to a Reuters inquiry about the latest sanctions reprieve.
Briefing on Iran strikes leaves senators divided as Trump threatens new row
by Joseph Gedeon and Robert Tait in Washington
Republican and Democratic senators have offered starkly contrasting interpretations of Donald Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities after a delayed behind-closed-doors intelligence briefing that the White House had earlier postponed amid accusations of leaks.
Thursday’s session with senior national security officials came after the White House moved back its briefing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, fueling Democratic complaints that Trump was stonewalling Congress over military action the president authorised without congressional approval.
“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said following the initial postponement, which he termed “outrageous”.
Even as senators were being briefed, Trump reignited the row with a Truth Social post accusing Democrats of leaking a draft Pentagon report that suggested last weekend’s strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months – contradicting the president’s insistence that it was “obliterated”.
“The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!” he wrote.
Read the full report here:
Updated
US supreme court set to deliver ruling on LBGTQ+ books in schools on last day of term
The US supreme court is expected to rule on Friday in a bid by Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters are read, Reuters reports.
Parents with children in public schools in Montgomery County, located just outside of Washington, appealed after lower courts declined to order the local school district to let children opt out when these books are read.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has expanded the rights of religious people in several cases in recent years.
The school board in Montgomery County approved in 2022 a handful of storybooks that feature LGBTQ+ characters as part of its English language-arts curriculum in order to better represent the diversity of families living in the county.
The storybooks are available for teachers to use “alongside the many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual characters in traditional gender roles”, the district said in a filing.
The district said it ended the opt-outs in 2023 when the mounting number of requests to excuse students from these classes became logistically unworkable and raised concerns of “social stigma and isolation” among students who believe the books represent them and their families.
Updated
Japan and the US are arranging for US secretary of state Marco Rubio to visit Japan for the first time in early July, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday.
Rubio is also planning to visit South Korea alongside attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ meetings in Malaysia in July, Kyodo reported, without mentioning sources, Reuters reports.
Updated
Several measures in Donald Trump's legislation 'cannot be included in current form', says Senate parliamentarian
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
We start with news that several key provisions in Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” must be reworked or dropped, a Senate parliamentarian has said.
The New York Times reports that Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian who enforces the Senate’s rules, has rejected a slew of major provisions, sending GOP leaders into a frenzy to try to salvage the legislation before next week’s 4 July deadline.
The publication reports that MacDonough has said several of the measures in the legislation that would “provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings could not be included in the legislation in their current form”.
They include one that would “crack down on strategies that many states have developed to obtain more federal Medicaid funds and another that would limit repayment options for student loan borrowers”, the NYT reports.
The report added that MacDonough “has not yet ruled on all parts of the bill” and that the tax changes at the centerpiece of Trump’s agenda “are still under review”.
In his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, Trump also made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.
Meanwhile, Robert F Kennedy Jr’s reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing specific preservative thimerosal – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability. About two weeks ago, Kennedy fired all 17 experts on the panel and went on to appoint eight new members, at least half of whom have expressed scepticism about some vaccines, the New York Times reports. Separately, the panel also recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants.
In other developments:
Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN over the outlets’ reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment on the US strikes in Iran that found the operation did less damage to nuclear sites than the administration has claimed.
NBC News is reporting that the White House plans to limit intelligence sharing with members of Congress after an early assessment of damage caused by US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were leaked this week, a senior White House official confirmed to the network.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced a new visa restriction policy he said was aimed at stopping the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the US.
US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy leaves Moscow, the US embassy in Russia says, according to Reuters.
The White House has recommended terminating US funding for nearly two dozen programs that conduct war crimes and accountability work globally, including in Myanmar, Syria and on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to three US sources familiar with the matter and internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.
Trump has not decided on a replacement for Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and a decision isn’t imminent, a person familiar with the White House’s deliberations said on Thursday, as one central bank policymaker said any move to name a “shadow” chair would be ineffective.
Trump’s administration is planning to deport migrant Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge on Thursday. The deportation will not happen until after Ábrego García is tried in federal court on migrant smuggling charges, a White House spokesperson said.
Updated
