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A plan to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.

Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.

For social justice activist Glenn Harris, Donald Trump’s statement on Juneteenth, arguing there are “too many nonworking holidays in America” costing the country “billions of dollars,” was no surprise.

Harris said the comments coming on the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States were consistent with Trump’s most recent policies and practices working against people of color.

“In many ways it’s just a continuation of this administration’s attempt to erase the civil rights, free speech and literally the history of Black and brown people,” said Harris, who is president of Race Forward.

JD Vance has suggested Iran’s estimated 400kg (882lb) stockpile of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, remains intact despite the recent US bombing campaign against Iran.

On Monday, the vice-president told Fox News that the location of the uranium “is not the question before us”, and said the relevant question was: “Can Iran enrich the uranium to weapons-grade level and can they convert that fuel into a nuclear weapon?”

The Iranian stockpile of uranium was believed to have been located mainly at Isfahan, which houses a conversion facility that turns uranium into the form that can be fed into centrifuges for enrichment.

Federal agencies are rehiring and ordering back from leave some of the employees who were laid off in the weeks after Donald Trump took office as they scramble to fill critical gaps in services left by the DOGE-led effort to shrink the federal workforce.

The Trump administration’s quiet backtracking from the firings and voluntary retirements — which are also paired with new hires to fill vacancies those departures created — come as federal agencies are still implementing their “reduction-in-force” plans as part of a push for spending cuts.

Experts warned that even though the Trump administration has backtracked on some of its efforts to shrink the federal workforce, the rapid rehirings are a warning sign that it has lost more capacities and expertise that could prove critical — and difficult to replace — in the months and years ahead.

Since the invasion of Ukraine prompted Helsinki to join NATO two years ago, tensions reminiscent of the Cold War have resurfaced along the forested 1,340-km frontier, Europe’s longest with Russia.

The provision was aimed at curbing nationwide injunctions imposed by judges that have blocked some high-profile Trump administration policies.

Senate Democrats forced the removal of a provision in Republicans' sweeping domestic policy bill that sought to restrict the power of courts to block federal government policies with injunctions or restraining orders.

Democrats are challenging a broad range of provisions in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" for compliance with Senate budget rules that Republicans are relying on to bypass the 60-vote hurdle in the chamber to advance most legislation.

A Democratic aide on the Senate Budget Committee confirmed that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, the in-house referee, ruled the provision did not comply with the “Byrd rule,” which says provisions must be directly related to taxes or spending.

The jury ordered chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman, 69, to pay damages to Erin Smith for assaulting her husband, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, on Jan. 6, 2021.

A federal jury on Monday awarded $500,000 to the widow and estate of a police officer who killed himself nine days after he helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob of rioters, including a man who scuffled with the officer during the attack.

The eight-member jury ordered that man, 69-year-old chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman, to pay $380,000 in punitive damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages to Erin Smith for assaulting her husband, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They awarded an additional $60,000 to compensate Jeffrey Smith’s estate for his pain and suffering.

The judge presiding over the civil trial dismissed Erin Smith’s wrongful-death claim against Walls-Kaufman before jurors began deliberating last week. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said no reasonable juror could conclude that Walls-Kaufman’s actions were capable of causing a traumatic brain injury leading to Smith’s death.

The American strikes are likely to be accepted – and even privately praised – by a Middle East officialdom that has long seen Iran as the primary threat to regional stability.

If Iran had hoped its neighbors would rise to its defense in the wake of unprecedented American and Israeli attacks, that moment may have passed.

On Monday, Iran fired back at the U.S. with a strike on the American Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, in what is already being seen as merely a face-saving gesture. Qatar said it had intercepted the Iranian missiles and condemned the attack, calling it a violation of its sovereignty.

But even as Middle Eastern leaders were quick to criticize Donald Trump’s paradigm-shifting assault on Iran following 10 days of Israeli bombardment, the American strikes are likely to be accepted — and even privately cheered — by an Arab officialdom that has long seen Shia Iran as the primary threat to regional stability.

The Trump administration's push to rapidly amass sensitive personal information about hundreds of millions of people living in the U.S. is extending to a rich new vein of information: troves of databases run by states. In some instances, the data could be leveraged to enhance the federal government's immigration enforcement efforts — a break with longstanding norms and practices that also raises legal questions.

"Every week we're seeing new examples of this administration demanding or sharing sensitive government data for unprecedented uses," said Nicole Schneidman, who heads the technology and data governance team at Protect Democracy, a non-profit legal center that describes its mission as "defeating the authoritarian threat."

Schneidman said Americans should understand "the data that they have entrusted to state governments right now is truly a target."

Those caring for relatives with severe disabilities say planned Republican cuts will be fatal for some

The bill will cut Medicaid across the US by 7.6 million to 10.3 million people, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, with the majority of the cuts as a result of work reporting requirements, increasing barriers for enrollment and renewal of Medicaid coverage, and limiting states’ ability to raise state Medicaid funds through provider taxes.

Medicaid recipients and advocates are warning of the negative impacts of work reporting requirements, pointing to the examples of the two states to have already tried work requirements for Medicaid, Georgia and, briefly, Arkansas. In both states, there was a significant increase in individuals without health insurance and medical debt, and no boost in employment, one of the Trump administration’s key arguments for imposing the requirements.

The Medicaid work reporting requirements would begin in December 2026, with proponents of the reporting requirement for able-bodied adults to work, volunteer or attend an education program at least 80 hours a month. The change comes after the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, claimed Medicaid recipients were “taking advantage”, “cheating” and “defrauding” the system.

Shrouded in secrecy, the US law enforcement agency has become a kind of domestic stormtrooper for MAGA’s agenda

Across the US, group chats and community threads have started spiking with warnings. Not just the typical alerts about traffic or out of service subway stations, but where and when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid was last seen. What places to avoid. What the plainclothes agents might look like.

“Hey all,” a Brooklyn, New York, resident wrote in a closed chat with neighbors last week. “A little birdie just told me ICE is out.” Another person quickly followed suit.

“The witness says they saw 3 people picked up by 2 agents with ICE on their vests,” they said, with details on where the location of the arrests occurred and what the undercover vehicles looked like. “If anyone sees any ICE agents or activity you can drop a description at this link for local rapid-response folks.”

These kinds of exchanges are commonplace now in in America.

Donald Trump ripped into Iran and Israel for violating a ceasefire deal within hours of his triumphant announcement.

“You basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f--- they’re doing! Do you understand that?” he told reporters Tuesday morning on his way to the NATO summit in The Hague.