Closing summary
This ends our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Wednesday. In the meantime, here are some of the day’s developments:
Elon Musk, who played a leading role in the Trump administration until last week, denounced the massive spending and tax bill the president wants to sign as “a disgusting abomination”. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong”, he added. One Republican who did vote for it, Scott Perry, quickly piped up to say that he agreed with Musk, even though his single vote could have stopped it from passing the House.
The White House gloated on social media about the arrests of the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspected Boulder attacker, and joked about providing them with “six one-way tickets”.
In the 48 hours since the firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, on a demonstration in support of Israelis held hostage in Gaza, Republicans politicized the attack, attempting to blame Democrats, including the state’s multiple Jewish leaders.
Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s “cruel” decision to rescind health department guidance issued in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision, striking down the right to an abortion, that required hospitals to provide abortions to women in medical emergencies even in state’s with local bans on the procedure.
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Law professor suggests spike in court orders against Trump might be because he is more 'lawless' than other presidents
At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, pressed Kate Shaw, a law professor and host of the liberal podcast Strict Scrutiny, to explain why so many more injunctions were issued against Donald Trump than against other presidents.
As Hawley had a chart displayed showing the comparison, and asked: “You don’t think this is a little bit anomalous?” Shaw replied: “A very plausible explanation, Senator, you have to consider, is that he is engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents.”
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Democrats condemn 'cruel, dangerous' order to revoke emergency abortion care
Democrats responded with anger to the Trump administration’s decision on Tuesday to rescind health department guidance issued in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision, striking down the right to an abortion, that required hospitals to provide abortions to women in medical emergencies even in state’s with local bans on the procedure.
“Trump’s HHS is erasing guidance that affirmed protections for abortion care during medical emergencies,” the Representative Ayanna Pressley wrote on Bluesky. This is cruel, callous, and outright dangerous.
“Trump just quietly erased guidance that told hospitals they had to save pregnant women’s lives,” the Washington Senator Patty Murray posted. “That’s right—they don’t care how many women die or are forced into health crises to advance their anti-abortion agenda. I won’t let this fly under the radar.”
“This is cruel, dangerous, and puts lives at risk,” the Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego wrote. “Revoking emergency abortion protections means women in medical crisis could be told ‘no’ at the ER — just because they’re pregnant.”
Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, also called the policy cruel. “Taking away emergency abortion care puts lives on the line and hands power to politicians, instead of medical professionals and patients,” she posted. “In Michigan, we trust women. We trust doctors. And we’ll never stop fighting to protect your health care.”
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Republicans blame Democrats for Boulder attack
In the 48 hours since the firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, on a demonstration in support of Israelis held hostage in Gaza, and the arrest of an Egyptian asylum seeker charged with hate crimes and attempted murder for wounding 12 people, Republicans have politicized the attack, attempting to blame Democrats for the attempted murders.
Donald Trump claimed that the suspect, who arrived on a tourist visa in 2022 and asked for asylum six months later, “came in through Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy”. The attack, Trump claimed, was “yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals”.
Republicans in Congress even tried to use the attack as an argument to pass their massive spending and tax cut bill, which takes health insurance away from millions and cuts taxes for the rich, but also increases spending on deportations. “This attack was preventable, but Democrats & Biden closed their eyes & created a national security nightmare” House Republicans posted. “It doesn’t have to be this way & House Republicans passed a solution: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
As the 9News Denver anchor Kyle Clark observed, “Colorado’s elected leaders are responding to the terror attack in Boulder, with leading Democrats condemning antisemitic hate and violence and leading Republicans condemning Democrats.”
Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, who is Jewish, said: “an attack on any of us is an attack on all of us, it goes for Jews, Christians, Muslims, people of no faith at all; there’s just no room in our state for these acts of terror”. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Phil Weiser, condemned what he called a painful, “antisemitic attack on fellow Jews”.
Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, whose mother was born to a secular Jewish family in Poland in 1938 and smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto, said he was horrified by “the terror attack in Boulder– targeting Jews peacefully marching”.
Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, posted on Bluesky: “My heart goes out to those who were injured in the senseless and despicable attack that took place in Boulder. Violence is never the answer. Antisemitism has no place here.”
Even so, two Colorado Republicans in Congress, Lauren Boebert and Gabe Evans, insisted Democrats were to blame.
“When progressives allow and encourage hate speech toward Jews for their mere existence, people get hurt,” Boebert posted.
In a dozen posts, Evans repeatedly claimed that the attack was “a direct result of failed sanctuary states like Colorado”, even though the state’s unwillingness to cooperate with federal immigration officers had nothing to do with the suspected attacker, who had reportedly applied for asylum and so was legally allowed to remain in the US until that claim was adjudicated.
But the most inflammatory response came from Danielle Jurinsky, a conservative Aurora city council member, who called the Democratic party “a demonic cult”, and attacked fellow Jews Polis, Bennet, Griswold and Weiser. “Shame on every single one of you, who have made the Democratic party your religion. Shame on you! You’re not Jewish, you’re a Democrat!”
By contrast, the organizers of the movement for Israeli hostages, Run for Their Lives, thanked Weiser and Polis “for their immediate and decisive responses”.
Run for Their Lives is non-partisan but at least one its leaders, Shira Weiss, is a committed Democrat. Her Facebook page mixes posts about the plight of the Israeli hostages with denunciations of Donald Trump. “Thank g-d no one in MY immediate family voted for this imbecile,” she wrote in April.
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During Tuesday’s Republican-led Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing, District Judges v Trump, there was an unusual degree of agreement among the senators and their panel of witnesses that nationwide injunctions have become problematic. They agreed that the sweeping rulings have been abused by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and that single judge divisions, which allow plaintiffs to guarantee their case will be heard by a particular judge they believe could be favorable to their case, known as forum shopping, are an “enormous problem”.
“Both sides,” Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, declared loudly during the hearing. “There are no clean hands here.”
But there was also plenty of political posturing and goal-scoring. Several Republican senators spent their time assailing the Democrats’ guest, law professor Kate Shaw, who hosts the podcast Strict Scrutiny, part of the liberal Crooked Media empire.
On concerns over the rising threats to judges, Republicans sought to point the finger at Democrats, ignoring entirely Trump’s attacks on the judiciary. At the end, Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, highlighted some of the names Trump has used against the judges who have ruled against him: “communist”, “lunatic” and “monster”.
In response, Cruz read aloud tweets posted by a liberal online commentator after the extraordinary supreme court leak that previewed the justices decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Declaring the left’s rhetoric “angry” and “unhinged”, he adjourned the hearing.
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On Tuesday, Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, convened a hearing on a legal matter that has troubled judges and lawmakers of both parties: nationwide injunctions.
Cruz said the use of nationwide injunctions by a single judge to block large swaths of Trump’s agenda from taking effect across the country amounted to “judicial tyranny”. But Democrats decried the hearing – titled The Supposedly ‘Least Dangerous Branch’: District Judges vs. Trump – as a political stunt designed to intimidate judges who rule against the president.
“These district judges, they were not elected,” Cruz said. “They were appointed by one individual and confirmed, not to legislate, not to govern, but to apply the law. And yet, far too many of them have abandoned that role. They stepped off the bench and into the political arena issuing sweeping edicts that impose their policy preferences on 340 million Americans.”
He counted 40 universal injunctions issued against Trump in his second term so far, noting that it was “more than all of the nationwide injunctions issued against [presidents] Bush, Obama and Biden combined.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said the rise in their use did not reflect judicial overreach but the necessary response to “unprecedented lawlessness”.
“Many are flat out, on their face illegal as any first year law student could tell you,” Whitehouse said, pointing to several of Trump’s executive orders that have triggered judges to issue nationwide injunctions, including his attempt to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the 14th amendment of the US constitution.
Trump is “breaking the law and doing it a lot,” Whitehouse said. “And judges are doing their job.”
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'Elon Musk is right' to criticize spending bill says House Republican who voted for spending bill
Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and member of the far-right House Freedom caucus, just seconded Elon Musk’s criticism of the massive spending bill that passed the House by a single vote as “a disgusting abomination” and added that the billionaire Republican donor “is right to call out House Leadership”.
Perry, who voted for the bill last month, shared Musk’s post with that criticism on the billionaire’s social media platform X along with a comment that he and his colleagues “were right all along” to object to the spending bill Donald Trump is eager to sign into law. Projections from non-partisan experts suggest that the spending bill, which includes massive tax cuts for the rich and could deprive 14 million people of health insurance, could add over $3tn to the federal debt in 10 years.
Aaron Fritschner, an aide to Representative Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, replied to the comment from Perry by pointing out that he could have defeated the bill himself by simply voting no. The House vote in favor of the bill, thanks to Perry’s vote, was 215-214.
Perry reportedly played a key role in Trump’s plot to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden, according to records obtained by special counsel Jack Smith, and the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
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White House boasts family of suspect in Boulder attack 'could be deported as early as tonight'
The White House is boasting on its official social media accounts about the arrests of the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspected Boulder attacker, who were taken into custody on Tuesday.
Soliman’s six family members, “have been captured and are now in ICE custody for expedited removal”, a White House post says. It adds, in all caps: “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT.”
Thirty minutes later, the White House added, in the gleeful, mocking tone that has distinguished posts gloating over deportations of even immigrants sent to foreign jails by mistake: “Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon.”
That timeline would appear to conflict with both court orders that people threatened with deportation should be given sufficient time to challenge their removals, and a statement from the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, earlier on Tuesday, that authorities “are investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it”.
According to a state arrest affidavit, Soliman told the Boulder police “no one knew about his plans and he never talked to his wife or family about it”.
For its post on Instagram, the White House cropped an image of Soliman taken during the attack to include a rainbow Progress Pride Flag on the Boulder courthouse behind him.
Stephen Redfearn, the Boulder police chief, said on Tuesday that all of the victims of the firebomb attack are expected to survive, the Denver Post reports. Three of the 12 victims are being treated at UCHealth’s burn and frostbite center at the University of Colorado in Aurora.
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Brazil's president resists Trump's threats to his supreme court
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, vowed on Tuesday to defend his country’s supreme court against attacks from the United States, in a sharp rebuke of potential sanctions from Washington against one of the top court’s justices.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio told Congress last week that the Trump administration could impose economic sanctions on the judge overseeing the trial of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally accused of plotting a January 6-style attack by his supporters on government buildings in Brasília in 2023, to demand that the presidential election he lost be overturned.
“It is unacceptable for the president of any country in the world to comment on the decision of the supreme court of another country,” Lula told reporters, adding that the United States needs to understand the importance of “respecting the integrity of institutions in other countries”.
The Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes is under fire from the far-right in Brazil and the US as he leads the court’s crackdown on what he has called threats to Brazil’s democracy, both online and in an alleged coup plot.
His orders to social media companies to remove posts from Bolsonaro supporters that he considered threats to democratic institutions were called censorship by Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, and Rumble, a right-wing alternative to YouTube backed by Peter Thiel and JD Vance.
The judge suspended Musk’s social media platform in Brazil until it acquiesced to his orders.
Tensions have spiked between the two nations since Trump took office, according to reports in the Brazilian press. Last month, the country’s leading newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo, reported that a Trump administration diplomat, David Gamble, was rebuffed when he asked, during a visit to Brazil, for the Brazilian gangs PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and CV (Comando Vermelho) to be designated terrorist organizations.
Two weeks later, according to Folha, a visit to Brasília by the head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, “caused discomfort among Brazilian military officials” and “a dinner he hosted that ended up sparsely attended after key invitees failed to show”.
The tension in that case was over the American’s announcement that he planned to visit a military base along the border with Peru and Bolivia, to highlight illegal trafficking, without getting permission from Brazil’s military.
The visit to the border was ultimately cancelled and Brazil’s defense minister and the leaders of its army, navy and air force did not attend the dinner hosted by the visiting US admiral.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene would have voted against spending bill if she had read it, she says
Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn widespread criticism from Democratic colleagues for admitting that not only did she not read Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill before voting for it, but she would have voted against it had she read thoroughly.
Greene revealed she was unaware of a provision in Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” (OBBB) that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence systems for a decade. The Georgia representative said she would have voted against the entire bill if she had known about the AI language buried on pages 278-279.
“Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years,” Greene wrote on X. “I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”
Democratic lawmakers, who all voted against the bill, responded with incredulity of Greene’s admission.
“You have one job. To. Read. The. Fucking. Bill,” Representative Eric Swalwell wrote in response.
Representative Ted Lieu said he had read the AI provision beforehand and “that’s one reason I voted no on the GOP’s big, ugly bill”, he posted on X. “PRO TIP: It’s helpful to read stuff before voting on it.”
Representative Mark Pocan was more forward: “Read the f**king bill instead of clapping for it like a performing monkey. You should have done your job while it was written. You didn’t. You own that vote.”
Read more:
Elon Musk’s online outburst could embolden fiscally conservative Republican senators – some of whom have already spoken out – to defy Trump as they continue crucial negotiations on Capitol Hill over the so-called “big, beautiful bill”, my colleague David Smith reports.
Musk drew immediate support from Thomas Massie, one of only two Republicans who last month voted against the bill in the House of Representatives. “He’s right,” Massie responded on X today.
Having narrowly passed the House, the bill is now under consideration in the Senate, which is aiming to pass a revised version by 4 July. Some Republican fiscal conservatives, such as senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, share Musk’s concerns about the need for significant spending cuts.
Trump, who has been pressuring Republicans to pass his signature legislation to enact his domestic agenda, attacked Paul on Truth Social earlier today, writing: “Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting “NO” on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not. The BBB is a big WINNER!!!”
He then posted again: “Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!”
House speaker Mike Johnson calls Musk ‘terribly wrong’ for slamming megabill
Politico reports that House speaker Mike Johnson said Elon Musk is “terribly wrong” after the tech billionaire – and, until last week, top Trump adviser - blasted Trump’s megabill as a “disgusting abomination” that will expand the “already gigantic” budget deficit.
“With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big, beautiful bill,” Johnson told reporters.
Johnson said he spoke over the phone with Musk for what he described as a friendly conversation of more than 20 minutes yesterday about the “virtues” of the bill. “And he seemed to understand that,” Johnson said.
Johnson added that he discussed with Musk the accelerated repeal of many green energy tax credits in the House version of the bill, which Musk also voiced opposition to last week.
“But for him to come out and pan the whole bill, to me, is just very disappointing, very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday,” Johnson said. “It’s not personal,” the speaker added. “I just deeply regret that he’s made this mistake.”
House majority leader John Thune, according to Politico, simply said GOP senators “have a difference of opinion” with Musk and that he hoped “he’ll come to a different conclusion” after learning more about the bill.
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Family of Colorado fire-bomb suspect taken into Ice custody
The family of the Egyptian national charged with attacking people with a makeshift flamethrower and other incendiary devices at an event for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, was taken into federal custody today, officials said.
The Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a social media video post that Ice had taken into custody the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who lived in Colorado Springs and who federal officials have said was in the US illegally, having overstayed a tourist visa and an expired work permit – though he had a pending asylum claim.
Noem said while Soliman will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, federal agents were also “investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack – if they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support for it”.
Ice did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for more details about the detention of Soliman’s family.
According to local media reports, Soliman’s family included two teenagers and three younger children. FBI and police officials had said on Monday that the family has cooperated with investigators. The suspect told investigators he acted alone.
DHS officials said Soliman entered the US in August 2022 on a tourist visa, filed for asylum the following month, and remained in the country after his visa expired in February 2023.
A police affidavit filed in support of Soliman’s arrest warrant said he was born in Egypt, lived in Kuwait for 17 years and moved three years ago to Colorado Springs, about 100 miles south of Boulder, where he lived with his wife and five children.
Federal and local authorities said at a news conference in Boulder yesterday that Soliman had done nothing to draw law enforcement attention before Sunday’s attack. He was believed to have acted alone, they said.
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US announces visa restrictions for several central American government officials
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has announced visa restrictions for several unnamed Central American government officials and their families for allegedly exploiting Cuban medical professionals, Reuters reports.
Rubio, who did not name the officials or the countries they are from, said the officials are responsible for Cuban medical mission programs that include elements of forced labor and the exploitation of Cuban workers.
“These steps promote accountability for those who support and perpetuate these exploitative practices,” he said in a statement.
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“Attacks on the judiciary itself are dangerous to the rule of law and to the actual judges themselves,” says Dick Durbin, citing a spike in violence and threats against judges and their families in light of the president’s rhetoric.
“Let us recognise that violence begets violence,” he says. “Threats of violence … are never acceptable.
“People are welcome to debate the merits of any particular judicial decision but we cannot condone personal attacks and threats against judges who rule against this administration, and we can’t allow partisan politics or the latest outrage from the president to undermine the judicial branch and our constitutional order.”
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Durbin cites language used by Trump and his allies to attack the “authority and legitimacy” of the judiciary and to intimidate judges, including demanding impeachment of a judge who ruled against him.
It is difficult to imagine either President Bush, President Obama or President Biden using such unhinged, bombastic and childish language, or calling for the impeachment of a judge simply for ruling against his administration.
The reason it’s difficult is because Obama or Biden never did anything like this.
Durbin goes on to say that Trump and “his allies go after anyone who dares to speak up because fear of political retribution is now at the core of this Maga world, and my Republican colleagues have been silent as the president has made the statements he has about judges”.
Democratic senator Dick Durbin points out the “flood the zone” context, saying Trump had “signed more executive orders than any president in history, leading to more court challenges than any president in history”.
“Seems pretty logical to me,” he said.
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The Republican senator Ted Cruz highlighted that the number of nationwide injunctions during the second Trump administration so far is “greater than the entire 20th century and greater than all of those issued against Bush, Obama and Biden combined”.
However, among the factors contributing to this high number are the several executive orders signed by Trump and a high number of policies being challenged in court.
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Democratic senator Dick Durbin has just posted about the hearing on X:
Donald Trump and his extreme allies keep using unhinged language to threaten judges … even calling for impeachment. Just imagine if President Obama had done that. Republicans would’ve thrown a fit.
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Senate judiciary committee hearing on judicial branch's oversight of executive authority
The senate judiciary subcommittees are holding a joint hearing on the judicial branch’s check on executive power, amid federal judges halting several of Donald Trump’s orders with nationwide injunctions. I’ll bring you any key lines here.
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Trump was not informed of Ukraine drone attacks in advance, says White House
Donald Trump was not informed in advance of Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russia, Karoline Leavitt said.
On Sunday, Ukraine said it launched 117 drones in an astonishing operation code-named “Spider’s Web” to attack Russian nuclear-capable long-range bomber planes at airfields in Siberia and the far north of the country.
Trump to sign order doubling metals tariffs, White House says
Donald Trump will sign an executive order today making official his vow to double tariffs on steel and aluminum, Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Last Friday Trump announced that he would increase tariffs on the two metals from 25% to 50%. Yesterday, Us steel and aluminum prices jumped while shares of foreign steelmakers fell.
White House says it is aware of reports of Israelis firing on Palestinian people seeking aid in Gaza
The White House said that it is aware of reports of Israeli troops firing on Palestinian people seeking aid near a food distribution site in southern Gaza.
“We’re going to look into reports before we confirm them from this podium or before we take action,” Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
At least 27 people were killed by Israeli fire as they waited for food at a distribution point set up by an Israeli-backed foundation in Gaza, according to health officials in the strip – the third such incident in three days. Israel admitted on Tuesday for the first time that its forces shot at individuals who were moving towards them.
'A disgusting abomination': Musk tears into Trump budget bill days after leaving White House
Elon Musk has significantly upped the ante in his criticism of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending cut bill, calling it a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled … disgusting abomination” that will expand the “already gigantic” budget deficit.
The billionaire, who only formally left his top role in the White House last week, wrote on his X platform:
I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.
It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.
The broadside comes as Trump pressures Republicans in the Senate to approve the legislation, which narrowly passed in the House of Representatives.
Asked about Musk’s criticism, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,” she added.
Last week, Musk had sharply criticised Trump’s spending plan, saying he was “disappointed” with the response to the federal cost-cutting efforts of his signature “department of government efficiency” (Doge) that would increase the budget deficit.
In an interview with CBS News, he called the bill too expensive and a measure that would “undermine” his work to make the government more “efficient”.
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White House says it's monitoring China's compliance with trade deal
The White House said that it is actively monitoring China’s compliance with last month’s tariff agreement, in response to questions on how it is handling Beijing’s curbs on rare earth minerals.
Karoline Leavitt also reiterated that Donald Trump would soon be speaking with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
“I can assure you that the administration is actively monitoring China’s compliance with the Geneva trade agreement,” she told reporters. “Our administration officials continue to be engaged in correspondence with their Chinese counterparts.”
Fema 'taking hurricane season seriously', says White House after agency head 'joked' that he didn't know about it
The White House said that Fema (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is taking severe storms seriously, following a Reuters report that the head of the agency said he was not aware of hurricane season.
“We know that we are into hurricane season now, and I know Fema is taking this seriously, contrary to some of the reporting we have seen based on jokes that were made and leaks from meetings,” Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Reuters reported that David Richardson, who has led Fema since early May, had told baffled staff he had not been aware that the US has a hurricane season. It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Fema’s parent agency, told Reuters the comment was a joke and that Fema is prepared for hurricane season.
Trump has said Fema should be shrunk or even eliminated, arguing states can take on many of its functions, as part of a wider downsizing of the federal government. About 2,000 full-time Fema staff, one-third of its total, have been terminated or voluntarily left the agency since the start of the Trump administration in January.
At the same time, data seen by the Guardian has showed that more than a dozen National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico coast are understaffed as the US plunges into an expected active season for ruinous storms. There is a lack of meteorologists in 15 of the regional weather service offices along the coastline from Texas to Florida, as well as in Puerto Rico – an area that takes the brunt of almost all hurricanes that hit the US. Several offices, including in Miami, Jacksonville, Puerto Rico and Houston, lack at least a third of all the meteorologists required to be fully staffed.
And the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the Miami-based nerve center for tracking hurricanes, is short five specialists, the Guardian has learned, despite assurances from the Trump administration that it is fully staffed ahead of what’s anticipated to be a busy hurricane season that officially started on Sunday.
Experts have warned the turmoil unleashed by Trump upon the NWS and Fema, which has had multiple leadership changes and still does not have a completed plan for this year’s hurricane season, will dangerously hamper the response to a summer that will likely bring storms, floods and wildfires across the US.
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Trump will attend Nato summit, White House says
Donald Trump will attend a summit of the transatlantic Nato alliance at The Hague later this month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
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Defense secretary Pete Hegseth will testify before the Senate armed services commitee at a 18 June hearing on the administration’s budget request, NBC is reporting, citing a source.
It will mark Hegseth’s first time appearing publicly before Congress since his confirmation.
A federal prosecutor who helped lead the Department of Justice’s investigation into the January 6 attack on Congress has resigned – and, in a new interview, he criticized Donald Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of about 1,500 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack, saying that it “sends a terrible message to the American people”.
Longtime assistant US attorney Greg Rosen, the former chief of the justice department’s Capitol siege section, sat down with CBS News after resigning over the weekend.
In the interview, Rosen said that he was “shocked, if not stunned” by the breadth of the pardons Trump issued to those involved in the 6 January 2021 attack just hours after his second presidential inauguration.
“I think the message that they send is that political violence towards a political goal is acceptable in a modern democratic society,” Rosen said. “That, from my perspective, is anathema to a constitutional republic.”
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Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer behind some of the Trump administration’s firings, met privately with JD Vance at the White House this morning, CNN is reporting, citing sources.
The vice president met alone with Loomer at the Eisenhower executive office building, the outlet reports. It is not known what the pair discussed.
After Loomer’s last known visit to the White House in April, Donald Trump fired several national security council staffers whom she described as disloyal to the president.
The firings created the extraordinary situation where Loomer appeared to have more influence than Mike Waltz, who was the national security adviser at the time, over the NSC and undercut Waltz in having aides axed under him.
Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, has sued New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor over his arrest on a trespassing charge at an immigration detention center.
Baraka, who is also running for the Democratic nomination for New Jersey governor, alleges that he was arrested for trespassing without cause and maliciously prosecuted following a tense confrontation last month at a privately run immigration detention center in Newark.
The lawsuit names as defendants Alina Habba, the acting US attorney in New Jersey and former personal lawyer to Donald Trump, and Ricky Patel, a Homeland security department official who allegedly ordered the arrest.
The lawsuit seeks damages for “false arrest and malicious prosecution,” and also accuses Habba of defamation for comments she made about his case, which was later dropped.
“This is not about revenge,” Baraka said during a news conference.
Ultimately, I think this is about them taking accountability for what has happened to me.
Trump seeks to reshape judiciary as first nominees face Senate
Donald Trump’s first batch of judicial nominees is set to go before a Senate panel as the president looks to further reshape a judiciary whose members have stymied parts of his agenda.
Five of the 11 judicial nominees Trump has announced so far are slated to appear tomorrow before the Republican-led Senate judiciary committee, which will weigh whether to recommend them for the full Senate’s consideration.
Those nominees all have conservative bona fides that their supporters say will help Trump shift the ideological balance of the judiciary further to the right after making 234 appointments in his first term, which was a near-record for a president’s first four years in office.
Trump’s first-term appointees included three members of the supreme court, which since gaining a 6-3 conservative majority has curtailed abortion rights, rejected affirmative action policies on university campuses and limited the power of administrative agencies.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that Trump was committed to “restoring integrity to the judicial system, which begins with appointing America First judges, not unelected politicians in robes”. Among Wednesday’s nominees is Whitney Hermandorfer, who as a lawyer serving under Tennessee’s Republican attorney general has defended the state’s abortion ban and challenged federal protections for transgender youth.
Hermandorfer, who is nominated to a seat on the Cincinnati-based 6th US circuit court of appeals, will appear before the Senate panel with four nominees to fill trial court vacancies in Missouri. Those include Joshua Divine, Missouri’s solicitor general, who challenged Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness efforts and has defended abortion and transgender healthcare restrictions.
Mike Davis, whose conservative Article III Project backs Trump’s judicial nominees, said that in his second term Trump “doesn’t need to appease the DC establishment with weak and timid judges”.
He is picking bold and fearless judges, like Emil Bove, who will follow the constitution instead of seeking establishment favor.
Bove, a justice department official who previously served as Trump’s defense lawyer in the New York criminal trial over hush money paid to an adult film star, was nominated last week to join the Philadelphia-based 3rd US circuit court of appeals, which if approved by the Senate would be a lifetime tenure.
His nomination drew criticism from Democrats and Ed Whelan, a conservative legal commentator who in a piece in the National Review called Bove’s nomination “disturbing”.
Millions of legal immigrants’ lives upended after social security freeze
Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.
The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.
The program began in 2017 under the first Trump Administration.
Without any public notice, on 19 March, the program was halted, impacting millions of immigrants every year and burdening Social Security Administration offices, as those applicants will now have to visit a Social Security Administration office and apply separately to receive a social security number.
Following the freeze, the Trump administration issued a memo on 15 April aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from receiving social security benefits, but provided no evidence of it being an issue.
Trump and Elon Musk, billionaire former leader of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) have falsely claimed these programs are being used to attract unauthorized immigrants to vote for Democrats.
“Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for Medicare or social security retirement benefits. Nor does any evidence exist that unauthorized immigrants fraudulently receive benefits in large numbers,” wrote Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, an economics professor at Boston College, in a blog post.
Republican senator Katie Britt asks about funding for charter school programs, which in the budget proposal is raised by $50m to $600m. She asks how these funds will be used to expand options particularly in rural and underserved communities so parents have “more choice” for their children.
McMahon says “no child should be trapped in a failing school”, which led Trump to want to expand funding for charter schools. She says the “freedom of choice” you get with charter schools is important.
For context, as my colleague Marina Dunbar wrote last month: “Charter schools are set up as alternatives to traditional public schools. They typically operate under private management and often feature small class sizes, innovative teaching styles or a particular academic focus.”
Last month the supreme court blocked an attempt led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major case involving religious rights in US education that challenged the constitutional separation of church and state.
Marina writes: “Opponents have said religious charter schools would force taxpayers to support religious indoctrination. Establishing them also could undermine non-discrimination principles, they argued, because religious charter schools might seek to bar employees who do not adhere to doctrinal teachings.”
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Democratic senator Dick Durbin grills McMahon on why they’re cutting the borrower defense branch of the education department, which supports students who have been left “exploited” and struggling to pay off debt after attending for-profit schools.
After stumbling over what the department is doing to address the problem, McMahon points to counsellors in schools who can provide support to those students, before Durbin cuts her off to point out that, as we’ve just heard, the administration is reducing funding for those very counsellors too.
Republican senator, Shelley Moore Capito, asks how they plan to ensure that Jewish students are able to learn in an environment free from intimidation on college campuses given the budget proposes to decrease the office of civil rights.
Education secretary, Linda McMahon, says actions taken on Columbia University and also Harvard illustrate that the administration “will not tolerate antisemitism on campuses or discrimination of any kind”. Those actions include moves to prevent encampments and mask-wearing (a reference to pro-Palestine protests last year).
“We are actively enforcing that and we have defunded [programs at Columbia and Harvard,” McMahon says. “We’re saying we mean business.”
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Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin asks McMahon if she does not believe that “increasing students’ access to mental health support is not in the best interests of the federal government”.
McMahon says they’re not looking to eliminate the funding, but plan to allow the states to rebid on a competitive grant basis.
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Democratic senator presses McMahon on whether administration plans to spend Congress-appropriated funds
Baldwin says that during her confirmation hearing McMahon had said funds appropriated by Congress “should be disseminated”.
“Now we have a budget request that significantly cuts funding for public schools, students and educators,” Baldwin says, adding that $8bn remains “unallocated”.
“Are you going to allocate all of the funding that Congress appropriated for students and schools … across the country this year?” she asks McMahon.
She interrupts as McMahon begins to answer to say that the question isn’t “nuanced”. “Congress passed a law appropriating this funding, you said in your confirmation hearing that you would spend funding Congress appropriated.
“If the answer isn’t simply ‘yes’, based on all the evidence before us that leads me to believe that you are planning to withhold funding and shortchange students and families across America.”
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McMahon says the budget will take a significant step towards the goal of shrinking federal bureaucracy, cutting waste and giving education back to the states.
Democratic senator tells McMahon 'students will pay price' for plan to dismantle education department
Baldwin says she is “deeply concerned” the administration is planning to “illegally impound [congressionally appropriated] funds and dismantle the department of education” adding: “It will be students who pay the price.”
“But if the executive branch is allowed to do that and ignore the laws we [Congress] pass, I’m not sure what we’re doing here,” Baldwin says.
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For this fiscal year, $13bn remain “unallocated” Baldwin says, calling it “flatly unprecedented and unacceptable”.
“The lack of transparency combined with this budget request raises serious questions about what are you trying to hide and why?” says Baldwin.
“This administration seems focused above all else on dismantling the department of education to score political points regardless of the impact on tens of millions of public school students,” she goes on.
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There is a feed at the top of the blog if you would like to follow along.
Education secretary Linda McMahon testifies about education budget in Senate hearing
Secretary of education, Linda McMahon, is testifying before the Senate appropriations committee on the education department’s budget 2026 request. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
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Pentagon to redraw command map to more closely align Greenland with the US - Politico
The Pentagon is poised to shift its oversight of Greenland by putting it under US Northern Command, “a symbolic gesture that would more closely align the island territory with the US”, Politico reports, adding: “The switch is the most concrete step yet in the Trump administration’s months-long effort to gain ownership over the autonomous island.”
The shift in oversight would see Greenland moved from European Command’s jurisdiction to Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing the security of North America – and could come as soon as this week, a DOD official and two people familiar with the planning told Politico. Denmark and the semi-autonomous Faroe Islands, on the other hand, would remain under European Command, “creating a symbolic and operational split between those territories and Greenland”.
One of the people told Politico:
From the perspective of geography, the move makes some sense. From a political perspective, however, this clearly is going to worry Europe.
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Trump privately complains about Amy Coney Barrett and other supreme court justices he nominated – CNN
Donald Trump has privately complained that the supreme court justices he appointed have not sufficiently stood behind his agenda, CNN reports, citing multiple sources familiar with the conversations, with particular ire at Justice Amy Coney Barrett, his most recent appointee.
The president has also expressed frustration about Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the sources told CNN, and his complaints have gone on for at least a year.
According to the sources, Trump’s private anger at Barrett “has been fuelled by allies on the right who have told Trump privately that Barrett is ‘weak’ and that her rulings have not been in line with how she presented herself in an interview before Trump nominated her to the bench in 2020”.
Causing anger in Trump’s orbit was Barrett’s vote in March to reject the president’s plan to freeze nearly $2bn in foreign aid, her decision that allowed Trump to be sentenced in his New York hush money case last year, and her decision to recuse herself from a high-profile case questioning whether a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma should be entitled to taxpayer funding (she had ties to the attorneys representing the school).
CNN notes:
Much of the criticism from the right has overlooked the fact that Barrett remains a reliable vote for conservative outcomes at the supreme court. She did not dissent in recent cases allowing Trump to enforce his ban on transgender service members, end temporary deportation protections for Venezuelans, fire board members at independent agencies and cut millions in education grants.
And yet Barrett is nevertheless one of the most important justices to watch because she does, at times, break with the more rigid conservativism embraced by [Clarence] Thomas and [Samuel] Alito. A year ago, when the supreme court was hearing arguments about whether to grant Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, it was Barrett who was at the center of some of the most compelling exchanges with Trump’s attorney. Barrett was one of several justices who prodded Trump’s attorney to agree that a president’s ‘private’ actions would not qualify for immunity.
But when the court’s decision landed in July, Barrett ultimately sided with the court’s conservatives to grant immunity to Trump.
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After Joe Biden revealed his cancer diagnosis, Donald Trump offered an uncharacteristically empathetic and simple response.
“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery,” Trump wrote on social media.
But the compassion didn’t last long. Trump soon reverted to type, dabbling in a burgeoning rightwing conspiracy theory about Biden’s health and comparing the former president, who has stage four prostate cancer, to a corpse, as Trump’s hangers-on and acolytes used the diagnosis to attack Biden and his wife.
Trump posted his well-wishing message on 18 May, after Biden’s office announced the 82-year-old had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
The president’s tone changed quickly, however. Trump spent Memorial Day – which the Department of Defense describes as being intended to “honor all those who died in service to the US during peacetime and war”, attacking his one time rival and his time in office. “Happy Memorial Day to all,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds, who allowed 21,000,000 million people to illegally enter our country, many of them being criminals and the mentally insane, through an open border that only an incompetent president would approve, and through judges who are on a mission to keep murderers, drug dealers, rapists, gang members, and released prisoners from all over the world, in our country so they can rob, murder, and rape again – all protected by these USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick, and very dangerous for our country.
It was clear that Trump’s “warmest and best wishes” to Biden had been firmly retracted, and that became even more transparent as Trump went on to promote an emerging, fact-free, theory that Biden hid the cancer diagnosis while in office.
“I’m surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” Trump said – seemingly conflating the Gleason score, which measures how cancerous cells look compared with normal cells, with Biden’s stage four cancer.
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Trump threatens 'large scale fines' over transgender athlete's participation in California high school competition
Donald Trump has threatened to impose “large scale fines” on California over the participation of a transgender athlete taking part in a high school competition.
The president wrote on Truth Social:
A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so. As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!
He appeared to be referring to 16-year-old AB Hernandez, a transgender athlete who took home gold in the girls high jump and the triple jump at the California high school track and field championship last weekend.
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the governing board for California high school sports, changed the rules ahead of the competition to allow more cisgender girls to compete and medal in events in which Hernandez competed. CIF announced the change after Trump threatened last week to pull federal funding from California unless it bars transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports.
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Millions of acres of Alaska wilderness will lose federal protection and be exposed to drilling and mining in the Trump administration’s latest move to prioritize energy production over the shielding of the US’s open spaces.
Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, said on Monday that the government would reverse an order issued by Joe Biden in December that banned drilling in the remote 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the New York Times reported.
The former president’s executive order was part of a package of protections for large areas of Alaska, some elements of which the state was challenging in court when he left office in January.
Burgum was speaking in Alaska on Monday accompanied by the Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, and the energy secretary Chris Wright.
He said the Biden administration had prioritized “obstruction over production” and Biden’s order was “undermining our ability to harness domestic resources at a time when American energy independence has never been more critical”.
In a post to Twitter/X, Wright said oil production was the “engine of economic growth” in Alaska, funding more than 90% of the state’s general revenue. “Unleashing American energy goes hand in hand with unleashing American prosperity,” he wrote.
Donald Trump has pardoned two south Florida shark divers convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman’s longline several miles from shore.
Pardons for Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr were signed on Wednesday. They had been convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction.
The two men avoided prison time, but they were ordered to pay $3,343.72 in restitution, and the felony convictions prevented them from voting in Florida, owning firearms and traveling freely outside the US.
“We never stopped fighting, and justice has finally prevailed,” Moore’s attorney, Marc Seitles, said in a statement. “We are thrilled the White House considered our arguments and determined this was an unjust prosecution. We could not be happier for John and Tanner.”
Moore, who was captain of a shark-diving charter boat, and Mansell, a crew member, spotted the longline about 3 miles (5km) off the Jupiter Inlet in August 2020, according to court records. Believing it was an illegal fishing line, the men freed the sharks and grouper, reported it to state wildlife officials and brought the line back to shore.
Trump administration uses Colorado suspect’s status to push deportation agenda
The immigration status of the man who allegedly attacked people with a makeshift flame-thrower and other incendiary devices at an event for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, has become further fodder for the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old who came to the US in 2022 from Egypt and overstayed his initial tourist visa, according to the US government, allegedly planned his attack on the event specifically to target Zionists, federal authorities said. He shouted “Free Palestine” while carrying out the attack, which the FBI has called an “act of terrorism”, and he was charged on Monday with a federal hate crime.
The attack combines two frequent enemies of the right – anti-Israel speech and actions, and illegal immigration – and is already being used on the right to garner support for more deportations. The response stands in contrast to how the right has reacted to attacks against Palestinians and Muslims in the US and to the conservative response to the war in Gaza. The Trump administration has also used support for Palestinians as an underpinning for deportations among college students.
The Gateway Pundit, a rightwing outlet, is referring to Soliman as “Biden’s Illegal Alien from Egypt”. Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, said the “terror attack” was committed by an “illegal alien”.
“He was granted a tourist visa by the Biden Administration and then he illegally overstayed that visa. In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit,” Miller wrote on X. “Suicidal migration must be fully reversed.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump blamed the attack on Biden’s “ridiculous Open Border Policy”.
“He must go out under ‘TRUMP’ Policy,” Trump wrote. “Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.”
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A Boston high school student who was detained by immigration agents on Saturday while he was on his way to volleyball practice must be kept in Massachusetts for at least 72 hours, a federal judge said on Monday.
Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, entered the United States on a student visa, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf after his arrest. While his student visa status has lapsed, he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.
US district judge Richard Stearns ordered the 72-hour stay on Monday to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues.
Nonetheless, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Monday defended his agency’s actions, saying the teen in question was “in this country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from anybody”. Gomes’s attorney asked for his immediate release.
Attorney Miriam Conrad, in a filing on Sunday, said that Gomes “has no criminal history anywhere in the world” in asking for his release.
Gomes was arrested on Saturday in Milford, Massachusetts, where he lives.
The European Union did not receive a letter from the United States in which Donald Trump’s administration made a demand for countries to submit their best offer on trade negotiations by Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the talks.
After a call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump restored a 9 July deadline to allow for talks between Washington and Brussels to continue.
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Authorities said on Sunday they believed Soliman acted alone and that no other suspect was being sought, AP reported.
He was also injured and was taken to a hospital to be treated. Authorities did not give details of his injuries, but a booking photo showed him with a large bandage over one ear.
Soliman was living in the US illegally after entering the country in August 2022 on a B2 visa that expired in February 2023, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
She added that Soliman filed for asylum in September 2022 and was granted a work authorisation in March 2023 that had expired.
Public records listed him as living in a modest rented townhouse in Colorado Springs, where local media outlets reported federal law enforcement agents were on the scene on Sunday.
An online resume under Soliman’s name said he was employed by a Denver-area healthcare company working in accounting and inventory control, with previous employers listed as companies in Egypt.
Under education, the resume listed Al-Azhar University, a historic centre for Islamic and Arabic learning in Cairo.
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Video from the scene shows a witness shouting: “He’s right there. He’s throwing molotov cocktails”, as a police officer with his gun drawn advances on a bare-chested suspect holding containers in each hand.
Alex Osante, of San Diego, said he was having lunch when he heard the crash of a bottle breaking on the ground and a “boom” sound followed by people yelling and screaming.
In video of the scene captured by Osante, people can be seen pouring water on a woman lying on the ground who Osante said had caught fire during the attack.
After the initial attack, Osante said the suspect went behind some bushes and then re-emerged and threw a petrol bomb, but apparently accidentally caught himself on fire as he threw it.
The man then took off his shirt and what appeared to be a bulletproof vest before the police arrived. The man dropped to the ground and was arrested without any apparent resistance in the video filmed by Osante.
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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on Monday saying he, his wife and the nation of Israel were praying for the full recovery of the people wounded in the “vicious terror attack” in Colorado.
“Sadly, attacks like this are becoming too common across the country,” said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office.
In New York, the police department said it had upped its presence at religious sites throughout the city for Shavuot.
The eight victims who were wounded were between 52 and 88 years old and the injuries ranged from serious to minor, officials said.
The attack occurred as people with a volunteer group called Run For Their Lives was concluding a weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza.
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Suspect in Colorado flamethrower attack told police he targeted 'Zionist group'
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a man accused of using a makeshift flame-thrower and an incendiary device to attack a US group bringing attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza has been charged with a federal hate crime.
Mohammed Sabry Soliman, 45, told police he had planned it for a year and targeted what he described as the “Zionist group”, the FBI said.
CNN reviewed a Facebook account matching his name and date of birth. It reported:
On the account’s page, which was last updated about 10 years ago, Soliman said he attended high school and college in Egypt and later moved to Kuwait, where he had an accounting job, according to the page. That account featured photos of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who served as Egypt’s president from 2012 to 2013, when he was ousted in a military coup that triggered mass protests and sit-ins in Cairo.
Posts on the Facebook page expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood protests against the removal of Morsi. One post from August 2013 featured a four-finger salute with a yellow background, a symbol supportive of the Rabaa al-Adawiya square encampment, which was violently dispersed by Egyptian security forces loyal to Egypt’s then-defense minister and current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Twelve people were injured in the attack in Colorado, some with burns, as a group was concluding a weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza, AP reported. Witnesses reported the man shouted “Free Palestine” during the attack.
An FBI affidavit says Soliman confessed to the attack after being taken into custody on Sunday and told the police he would do it again. The affidavit was released in support of a federal hate crime charged filed by the Justice Department on Monday.
The attack happened on the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which is marked with the reading of the Torah, and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
Federal and state prosecutors filed separate criminal cases against Soliman, charging him with a hate crime and attempted murder, respectively. He faces additional state charges related to the incendiary devices, and more charges are possible in federal court, where the justice department will seek a grand jury indictment.
During a state court hearing on Monday, Soliman appeared briefly via a video link from the Boulder County Jail wearing an orange jumpsuit.
In other news:
The head of Ice defended his agency’s decision to arrest an 18-year-old Massachusetts high school student on his way to volleyball practice. US district judge Richard Stearns later ordered a 72-hour stay to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues in the case of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) barred its 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony on Friday after she delivered a speech during a commencement event the day before condemning Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizing the university’s ties to Israel.
China accused the US of “seriously violating” and undermining the agreements reached in Geneva in May.
Prosecutors in Milwaukee charged a man on Monday with four felonies for attempting to frame an undocumented immigrant he is accused of assaulting, by sending forged letters in the immigrant’s name with a threat to kill Donald Trump.
New York’s lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, announced on Monday that he is running for governor, setting up a Democratic primary battle against the sitting governor, Kathy Hochul, who selected him for the job as her deputy.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s senior Democrat, released a social media video on Monday in which he seemed to taunt Donald Trump for supposedly being too “chicken” in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
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