Key occasions
That is President Trump’s schedule for the day, based on the White Home:
11am – Trump will attend a nationwide safety assembly within the Oval Workplace
2pm – He’ll journey to Bedminster, New Jersey
7.30pm – Trump will attend a dinner for the Tremendous pac Maga Inc at his golf course
Joanna Walters
Donald Trump did not mark Juneteenth, commemorating the ending of slavery within the US, till he posted on Thursday night time that there are “too many non-working holidays” within the nation.
The US president has put out statements beforehand as president and even tried to take credit score for reinforcing consciousness of the importance of June 19 earlier than it turned a federal vacation below the Biden administration.
However on this yr’s Juneteenth vacation on Thursday, the garrulous president saved silent on all platforms a few day of explicit significance to Black People till his late submit.
With out mentioning Juneteenth by identify, Trump complained on Reality Social about “too many non-working holidays” and mentioned it’s “costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed”. However most retailers have been open on Juneteenth.
Tom Perkins
The Trump administration is transferring to maintain open two Michigan coal vegetation that emit about 45% of the state’s greenhouse fuel air pollution, which opponents say is a sign of how the US president plans to wield his controversial nationwide vitality emergency govt order.
Already, the US Division of Vitality (DoE) has ordered the JH Campbell coal plant on Lake Michigan to stay open past its 31 Could closure date, whereas the administration is predicted to delay the lifetime of the Monroe energy plant on Lake Erie, at the moment scheduled to start closing in 2028.
Opponents say the order has little assist in Michigan, may value ratepayers tons of of tens of millions of {dollars}, and is ideologically pushed. The state’s utilities have mentioned they didn’t ask for the vegetation to remain on-line, and the Trump administration didn’t talk with stakeholders earlier than the order, a spokesperson for the Michigan public service fee (MPSC), which regulates utilities and manages the state’s grid, informed the Guardian.
“The unnecessary recent order … will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the midwest,” the chair of the MPSC, Dan Scripps, mentioned in an announcement. “We currently produce more energy in Michigan than needed. As a result, there is no existing energy emergency in either Michigan or [the regional US grid].”
The large and ageing amenities additionally launch excessive ranges of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter into the air. In the meantime, their coal ash ponds leach arsenic, lead, lithium, radium and sulfate into native consuming water and the Nice Lakes. The Monroe energy plant is accountable for extra arsenic water air pollution than some other energy plant within the US.
Maya Yang
The US Division of Homeland Safety is now requiring lawmakers to offer 72 hours of discover earlier than visiting detention facilities, based on new steerage.
The steerage comes after a slew of tense visits from Democratic lawmakers to detention facilities amid Donald Trump’s crackdowns in immigrant communities throughout the nation. Many Democratic lawmakers in latest weeks have both been turned away, arrested or manhandled by regulation enforcement officers on the amenities, resulting in public condemnation in the direction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (Ice) dealing with of such visits.
Lawmakers are allowed to entry DHS amenities “used to detain or otherwise house aliens” for inspections and usually are not required “to provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility”, based on the 2024 Federal Appropriations Act.
Earlier language surrounding lawmaker visits to such amenities mentioned that “Ice will comply with the law and accommodate members seeking to visit/tour an Ice detention facility for the purpose of conducting oversight,” CNN reported.
Nevertheless, within the new steerage, the DHS up to date the language to say that Ice “will make every effort to comply with the law” however “exigent circumstances (eg operational conditions, security posture, etc) may impact the time of entry into the facility”.
The brand new steerage additionally makes an attempt to tell apart Ice subject workplaces from Ice detention amenities, noting that since “Ice field offices are not detention facilities” they don’t fall below the visitation necessities specified by the Appropriations Act.
The Guardian has contacted Ice for remark.
Melody Schreiber
Amid controversial dismissals for unbiased advisers and workers at well being businesses, alongside lackluster responses to the hen flu and measles outbreaks, consultants concern the US is now in worse form to reply to a pandemic than earlier than 2020.
H5N1, which has obtained much less consideration below the Trump administration than from Biden’s group, shouldn’t be the one influenza virus and even the one variant of hen flu with the potential to spark a pandemic. However a subpar response to the continued US outbreak alerts a bigger concern: America shouldn’t be prepared for no matter pathogen will sweep by way of subsequent.
“We have not even remotely maintained the level of pandemic preparedness – which needed a lot of work, as we saw from the Covid pandemic,” mentioned Angela Rasmussen, an American virologist on the Vaccine and Infectious Illness Group on the College of Saskatchewan in Canada. “But now, we essentially have no pandemic preparedness.”
“I’m concerned on a number of fronts,” mentioned Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Heart at Brown College College of Public Well being.
These issues embrace a scarcity of high quality data from officers, weakened virus monitoring techniques, and public well being reductions on the federal, state and native ranges.
Edward Helmore
Donald Trump has denied a report within the Wall Road Journal that he has authorized US plans to assault Iran, saying that the information outlet has “no idea” what his considering is regarding the Israel-Iran battle.
He additionally confirmed, in a while Thursday, through his press secretary, that he’d be making a call throughout the “next two weeks”.
The Journal reported late on Wednesday that Trump informed senior aides a day earlier that he had authorized assault plans however was delaying on giving the ultimate order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program. The report cited three nameless officers.
On Thursday, Trump responded to the report, posting on Reality Social: “The Wall Street Journal has No Idea what my thoughts are concerning Iran!”
However Trump’s choice relies on whether or not the Huge Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) would destroy the Fordow uranium enrichment website, a US official informed Axios. Fordow, which is constructed right into a mountain south of Tehran, is a goal of Israel’s, however they lack the “bunker-buster bombs” and plane wanted to destroy it; the US has entry to each.
“We’re going to be ready to strike Iran. We’re not convinced yet that we’re necessary. And we want to be unnecessary, but I think the president’s just not convinced we are needed yet,” a US official informed the outlet.
Victoria Bekiempis
The Los Angeles Dodgers mentioned on Thursday they denied US immigration enforcement brokers entry to the parking zone at Dodger Stadium earlier within the day.
“This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots,” the baseball group mentioned in a submit on X.
“They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight’s game will be played as scheduled.”
However Ice mentioned in a response to the Dodgers’ tweet that its brokers “were never there”, and Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs on the DHS, mentioned in an announcement that “this had nothing to do with the Dodgers. CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement.”
The forwards and backwards solely added to nervousness in a metropolis left on edge by frequent and brazen immigration enforcement actions.
The homeland safety presence got here as immigrant communities in LA are on excessive alert as federal brokers have raided workplaces, parking heaps and a swap-meet looking for undocumented immigrants.
For the reason that division stepped up enforcement within the area, there have been persistent rumors that the stadium of the Dodgers, a group which has a big Latino fanbase, could also be a goal.
Courtroom lets Trump maintain management of California nationwide guard for now
Hi there and welcome to the US politics reside weblog. I’m Tom Ambrose and might be bringing you the information over the subsequent few hours.
We begin with the information that a US appeals court docket let Donald Trump retain management on Thursday of California’s nationwide guard whereas the state’s Democratic governor proceeds with a lawsuit difficult the Republican president’s use of the troops to quell protests in Los Angeles.
Trump’s choice to ship troops into Los Angeles prompted a nationwide debate about the usage of the army on US soil and infected political rigidity within the nation’s second most-populous metropolis.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based ninth US Circuit court docket of appeals prolonged its pause on U.S. District Choose Charles Breyer’s 12 June ruling that Trump had unlawfully referred to as the nationwide guard into federal service.
Trump in all probability acted inside his authority, the panel mentioned, including that his administration in all probability complied with the requirement to coordinate with Governor Gavin Newsom, and even when it didn’t, he had no authority to veto Trump’s directive.
“And although we hold that the president likely has authority to federalize the national guard, nothing in our decision addresses the nature of the activities in which the federalized national guard may engage,” it wrote in its opinion.
Newsom may nonetheless problem the usage of the nationwide guard and U.S. Marines below different legal guidelines, together with the bar on utilizing troops in home regulation enforcement, it added. The governor may elevate these points at a court docket listening to on Friday in entrance of Breyer, it mentioned.
In a submit on X after the choice, Newsom vowed to pursue his problem.
“The president is not a king and is not above the law,” he mentioned. “We will press forward with our challenge to President Trump’s authoritarian use of US military soldiers against our citizens.”
Trump hailed the choice in a submit on Reality Social. “This is a great decision for our country and we will continue to protect and defend law-abiding Americans,” he mentioned.
“This is much bigger than Gavin, because all over the United States, if our cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should state and local police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done.”
In different information:
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The Los Angeles Dodgers mentioned they blocked US immigration enforcement brokers from accessing the parking zone at Dodger Stadium on Thursday and bought into public back-and-forth statements with Ice and the Division of Homeland Safety, which denied their brokers have been ever there.
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The Division of Homeland Safety is now requiring lawmakers to offer 72 hours of discover earlier than visiting detention facilities, based on new steerage. The steerage comes after a slew of tense visits from Democratic lawmakers to detention facilities amid Trump’s crackdowns in immigrant communities throughout the nation.
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A federal decide on Thursday blocked Trump’s administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement with the intention to obtain billions of {dollars} in transportation grant funding. Chief US district decide John McConnell in Windfall, Rhode Island, granted the states’ request for an injunction barring the Division for Transportation’s coverage, saying the states have been more likely to succeed on the deserves of some or all of their claims.
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The workplace of the US protection secretary, Pete Hegseth, requested “a passive approach to Juneteenth messaging”, based on an unique Rolling Stone report citing a Pentagon e mail. The messaging request for Juneteenth – a federal vacation commemorating when enslaved Black individuals in Galveston, Texas, realized they have been free – was transmitted by the Pentagon’s workplace of the chief of public affairs. This workplace mentioned it was not poised to publish internet content material associated to Juneteenth, Rolling Stone reported.
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Relying on who you ask, between 4 and 6 million individuals confirmed as much as final weekend’s “No Kings” protests. Now the actual quantity is turning into clearer, with one estimate suggesting that Saturday was amongst the largest.
