Trump hails supreme court docket choice to let him dismantle training division – US politics stay

Luke Harding in Kyiv and Artem Mazhulin

Ukrainians are celebrating Melania Trump on social media in a sequence of memes, after Donald Trump steered the primary girl performed an element in his obvious change of coronary heart over Russia.

Talking at a gathering within the White Home on Monday with the Nato secretary basic, Mark Rutte, Trump stated his spouse had performed a key position in mentioning Vladimir Putin’s duplicity.

“My conversations with him [Putin] are always very pleasant. I say, ‘Isn’t that a very lovely conversation?’ And then the missiles go off that night,” Trump stated.

“I go home, I tell the first lady: ‘I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said: ‘Really? Another city was just hit.’”

Slovenian-born Melania, who grew up within the former Yugoslavia, has beforehand seemed to be an even bigger supporter of Ukraine than the sceptical US president, who in February this 12 months known as Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. Shortly after the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion, she appealed to her social media followers to donate to the Pink Cross, saying it was “heartbreaking and horrific to see innocent people suffering”.

After Trump’s Oval Workplace feedback on Monday, one social media person posted a photograph of “Agent Melania Trumpenko” carrying a blazer with a Ukrainian trident insignia. Her face is half-shaded with an enormous hat, giving the impression she is working undercover contained in the White Home, to Kyiv’s profit.

The journal Enterprise in Ukraine noticed that “there is a lot of love on social media tonight for Melania Trump” after the announcement that the US would ship Patriot air defence programs to Ukraine.

It reproduced a longstanding meme that includes three creatures carrying a military helmet and army caps. The picture is used to indicate a western politician or celeb who helps or is pleasant to Ukraine. The creatures give Melania a hat adorned with a Ukrainian flag.

One other meme reveals the primary girl standing behind her husband within the Oval Workplace, whereas he indicators a presidential decree.

The caption reads: “Sisters Melania of the Bene Gesserit” – a reference to the highly effective, secret and politically influential sisterhood from Frank Herbert’s science fiction e-book Dune.

A gaggle of Republican lawmakers has complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer time for People, simply days after voting for a serious invoice that can trigger extra of the planet-heating air pollution that’s worsening wildfires.

In a letter despatched to Canada’s ambassador to the US, six Republican members of Congress wrote that wildfire smoke from Canada has been a problem for a number of years and lately their voters “have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer”.

“Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created,” the group of Home of Consultant members from Wisconsin and Minnesota wrote on 7 July.

“In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things.”

The lawmakers urged Canada to take “proper action” to scale back the smoke and famous the historic friendship between Canada and America, with out mentioning Donald Trump’s repeated calls for for Canada to be annexed and change into the 51st state of the US. “Our communities shouldn’t suffer because of poor decisions made across the border,” Tom Tiffany, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin and one of many letter’s authors, wrote on X.

Trump administration dashes hopes of anti-pollution plan for JD Vance’s residence city

Stephen Starr

A Biden-era plan to implement a gas-powered blast furnace at a metal mill in Ohio, which might have eradicated tons of greenhouse gases from the native atmosphere 12 months over 12 months and created greater than a thousand jobs, has been placed on maintain indefinitely by the Trump administration.

Consultants and locals say the setback might drastically have an effect on the well being and monetary state of these residing across the mill.

For 13 years, Donna Ballinger has been coping with blasting noises and layers of mud from coal and heavy metals on her automobiles and home, located a couple of hundred yards from the Cleveland-Cliffs-owned Middletown Works metal mill in south-west Ohio.

“I’ve had sinus infections near constantly. I have COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease],” she says. “When they’ve got the big booms going, your whole house is shaking.”

So when two years in the past, the metal mill efficiently trialed a hydrogen gas-powered blast furnace, the primary time the gasoline had been deployed on this trend anyplace within the Americas, she was delighted. It price an estimated $1.6bn, and the Biden administration, by means of the Inflation Discount Act (IRA), coughed up $500m to assist cowl the price of putting in the know-how.

Changing a coal-powered furnace would have eradicated 1m tons of greenhouse gases from the native atmosphere yearly, in line with Cleveland-Cliffs. It might even have saved the corporate $450m yearly by means of “efficiency gains and reduced scrap dependency”, and created 1,200 building and 150 everlasting jobs within the city of fifty,000 residents who’ve struggled for many years with manufacturing losses.

The US Senate will start voting as quickly as Tuesday on president Donald Trump’s request to slash $9.4 billion in spending on international help and public broadcasting beforehand accepted by Congress, the newest take a look at of Trump’s management over his fellow Republicans.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the chamber’s Republican majority chief, stated he hoped the primary procedural votes would happen on Tuesday, however he didn’t know whether or not he had sufficient votes for the measure to move with out amendments.

“I don’t know the answer to that at this point. We got a lot of feedback. And I know there are folks who would like to see at least some modest changes to it,” Thune informed reporters.

The Senate has till Friday to behave on the rescessions bundle – a request to claw again $8.3 billion in international help funding and $1.1 billion for public broadcasting – or the request will expire and the White Home might be required to stick to the spending plans handed by Congress.

The quantities at stake are small within the context of the sprawling federal finances, which totaled $6.8 trillion within the fiscal 12 months ended 30 September. But they’ve raised the hackles of Democrats and a handful of Republicans who see an try to erode Congress’s authority over spending.

Democrats say the packages in Trump’s crosshairs are international help initiatives. These embrace help for girls and kids’s well being and the battle towards HIV/AIDS, packages which have lengthy had robust bipartisan help. Democrats additionally oppose chopping funds supporting broadcasting they view as important communications in rural areas.

Trump stated he was “disappointed, but not done” with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hours after he introduced a army cope with Nato international locations to arm Ukraine.

His announcement, alongside the Nato secretary basic, Mark Rutte, within the Oval Workplace, has been seen in Europe as an vital shift from Washington.

When requested if he was accomplished with Putin, the president replied: “I’m disappointed in him, but I’m not done with him. But I’m disappointed in him.

“We had a deal done four times and then you go home and you see just attacked a nursing home in Kyiv. And so what the hell was that all about?” Requested if he trusted him, he stated: “I trust almost nobody, to be honest with you.”

He additionally stated he believed there was a newfound respect for him amongst world leaders – now he had twice gained the presidency.

“When you do it twice, it’s the big difference. I also think that over the years, they’ve gotten to know me, this is not an easy crowd to break into,” he stated. “These are smart people heading up very, very successful … countries, you know, they’re Germany and France, Spain and, yeah, big.”

Requested if he felt world leaders have been being too obsequious and deferential, Trump stated: “Well, I think they’re just trying to be nice.”

Donald Trump additionally mirrored on the tried assassination of him, which the BBC journalist Gary O’Donoghue witnessed at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, final July.

Chatting with BBC Information, he stated:

We had 55,000 folks, and it was lifeless silence. And so, you understand, I assumed that they anticipated the worst.

And so I needed to allow them to know I used to be OK, which is what I did. That’s why I attempted to rise up as fast as potential. That they had a stretcher able to go. I stated: ‘No, thank you.’

I really had an enormous argument with them. They needed me on a stretcher. And I stated: ‘Nope, I’m not doing that.’

Trump stated he didn’t prefer to spend time fascinated by that day – however acknowledged it might have an effect on him deeply if he began to dwell on it.

He stated:

I like to consider it as little as potential.

I don’t like dwelling on it, as a result of if I did, it is perhaps life altering. I don’t need it to be that.

In that BBC interview, president Donald Trump stated that he was satisfied the UK would come to the US’s help if it have been at warfare.

He stated:

I believe they might be, I don’t suppose loads of the opposite international locations could be.

It’s a particular relationship. Look, that’s why I made a cope with them … for essentially the most half when it comes to your opponents and when it comes to the European Union, I haven’t made a deal.

Now the UK may be very particular … they’ve been a very true ally.

Trump, who has beforehand been a key advocate of Brexit, additionally steered he didn’t suppose the potential had been fulfilled – however stated Starmer was making progress:

No, I believe, I believe it’s been on the sloppy aspect, however I believe it’s getting straightened out. I actually just like the prime minister so much though he’s a liberal, I believe he’s, you understand, he did an excellent commerce cope with us.

Good morning and welcome to our stay protection of US politics amid the information that “America’s students will be the best, brightest, and most highly educated anywhere in the world,” in line with Donald Trump as he welcomed the supreme court docket’s choice to permit him to resume dismantling the Division of Training.

In a late night time put up on Fact Social, the president stated:

America Supreme Courtroom has handed a Main Victory to Dad and mom and College students throughout the Nation, by declaring the Trump Administration could proceed on returning the features of the Division of Training BACK TO THE STATES.

Now, with this GREAT Supreme Courtroom Resolution, our Secretary of Training, Linda McMahon, could start this essential course of. The Federal Authorities has been working our Training System into the bottom, however we’re going to flip it throughout by giving the Energy again to the PEOPLE.

America’s College students would be the greatest, brightest, and most Extremely Educated anyplace within the World. Thanks to the US Supreme Courtroom!

The three liberal justices on the court docket dissented over the choice which can enable McMahon – a founding father of World Wrestling Leisure – to put off practically 1,400 workers.

McMahon stated it’s a “shame” it took the supreme court docket’s intervention to let Trump’s plan transfer forward.

“Today, the supreme court again confirmed the obvious: the president of the United States, as the head of the executive branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon stated in an announcement.

A lawyer for the Massachusetts cities and training teams that sued over the plan stated the lawsuit will proceed, including no court docket has but dominated that what the administration needs to do is authorized.

“Without explaining to the American people its reasoning, a majority of justices on the US supreme court have dealt a devastating blow to this nation’s promise of public education for all children. On its shadow docket, the Court has yet again ruled to overturn the decision of two lower courts without argument,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Ahead, stated in an announcement.

Learn the complete story right here:

Additionally in a single day, Trump stated he was “disappointed but not done” with Vladimir Putin in feedback to the BBC’s journalist Gary O’Donoghue. It adopted yesterday’s Oval Workplace assembly with Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte, through which Trump promised a brand new weapons deal for Ukraine and threatened to impose “severe” sanctions on Russia if the warfare doesn’t finish inside 50 days.

The interview additionally touched on the assassination try towards him, how he’s wanting ahead to his state go to to the UK and his immigration and tax insurance policies and we are going to deliver you some main traces shortly.

In different information:

• Mike Waltz will face questioning from lawmakers for the primary time since he was ousted as nationwide safety adviser. Trump has nominated him to be US ambassador to the United Nations, and he’s set to seem earlier than the Senate Overseas Relations Committee for his affirmation listening to right now.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, thanked Trump for saying that European nations, led by Germany and Norway, might buy US-made Patriot missile air-defense programs on Ukraine’s behalf, to assist defend the nation towards aerial bombardment by Russia.

• Trump continued his assaults on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, calling the central banker a “stupid guy” and a “knucklehead” because the president known as for rates of interest to be lowered to 1% or much less.

• As Trump confronted blowback from supporters over his administration’s choice to not launch extra details about the late convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, extra consideration was being paid to the president’s evasive reply on the topic throughout a portion of an interview with Fox Information final 12 months that was not broadcast.