Under the Trump administration, competition for government funding for biomedical research has reached new heights. In June, the National Institutes of Health proposed one solution: limiting the number of grants each individual scientist can have at a given moment.

The agency recently released the anonymized 3,307 responses to its call for feedback, and it appears the proposal has drawn more mixed reactions than earlier such proposals. The NIH estimates that 40% of the responses opposed the proposal, 27% supported the idea of a cap, and 32% were mixed.

In a post on its site, the agency said it hopes a cap could “contribute to a more balanced research portfolio, advancing stewardship, workforce sustainability, and the goals of the NIH Unified Funding Strategy.” But even some experts who agree with the spirit of the proposal worry that it could be another source of disruption for researchers in what has been a tumultuous time; some also argue that a straight cap on the number of grants may be too simplistic.

“A fixed grant cap is too blunt for the diverse landscape of biomedical science. Like a sensor calibrated to its specific target … Many highly productive programs rely on multiple interrelated awards to address complex challenges across discovery, technology development, validation, clinical translation, and implementation. Each grant supports a distinct but complementary component,” reads one in opposition to the proposal.

In 2017, the NIH proposed limiting the amount of funding individual researchers could receive from the agency, only to abandon the idea a month later following lobbying from prestigious universities, which would have been hurt by the proposal.

Many of the comments on the latest proposal suggest caveats to any caps on the number of grants that are awarded. One commenter, for instance, tried to address concern that caps could disincentivize proposals led by multiple principal investigators, which are tailored for projects needing collaboration across institutions. “Counting an MPI role identically to a sole-PI award is in tension with NIH’s longstanding encouragement of team science and with the structure of many cooperative and center mechanisms,” reads the comment.

Across the board, many commenters expressed the need to support early-career researchers, who have been particularly hit by stiff competition under the Trump administration. Proponents of a cap hope that limiting resources dedicated to more established investigators will mean more funds for younger researchers. But others wrote that if researchers have to be stingy with which grants they apply for, they may not prioritize training students. One commenter wrote that many investigators “with multiple [grants] are the ones who have the capacity, research, and expertise to train PhD students and early career investigators. We will see a significant bottleneck in training the next generation of researchers.”

Of those who favored a cap, 51% supported it be set at two grants per investigator, 40% set it at three, and 5% supported setting it at four.

It’s unclear what the NIH will do next, or when. In the post on its site, staff wrote: “NIH is carefully considering your comments and recommendations, which will inform next steps. We will share additional information as this process moves forward.”

Nearly every session at the Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Asheville, N.C., this week began with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent extolling the state of the U.S. economy under President Trump and urging other countries to be more like America.

America’s allies were not always receptive. At several points, representatives from Europe, Canada and other nations friendly to the United States criticized the administration for moves that they say have hurt their economies.

They voiced displeasure over the war with Iran, which has resulted in disruptions to energy markets and shipping. They also raised Mr. Bessent’s surprise decision to sell U.S. holdings of euros to prop up Japan’s currency last month, and the administration’s escalating war of words and tariffs with Canada.

The disagreements, while mostly polite, reflected a growing frustration in Europe and elsewhere over Mr. Trump’s stewardship of the global economy — and allies’ sense that his policies have in important ways hindered economic growth, the issue Mr. Bessent said the administration was “laser-focused” on.

“Despite U.S. strong-arm tactics, even traditional U.S. allies among the G20 are clearly and publicly at odds with the Trump administration’s priorities,” said Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division.

Some of the difference is philosophical. Mr. Trump has eviscerated regulatory barriers for businesses, including the booming artificial intelligence industry, and leaned into fossil fuel production. European leaders remain more cautious on A.I. and other deregulation and more committed to a transition to renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, even as they try to nurture their own tech ecosystem to rival America and China.

“There are clear differences, and we will handle it that way,” Lars Klingbeil, the German vice chancellor, told reporters on Tuesday in Asheville. He pointed to America’s tariff conflicts, including its escalating standoff with Canada, which he said were eroding trust in global trade and would “ultimately harm everyone involved.”

Mr. Bessent and colleagues planned the gathering on Monday and Tuesday as a showcase for the administration’s policies and an advertisement for the strength of American business. In an apparent first, Mr. Bessent invited American chief executives from industries including banking and cryptocurrency to sessions with the visiting officials. All of this was done under the banner of improving public-private collaboration and juicing investment.

“The foundation of America’s strength is predicated on remaining the pre-eminent economy in the world,” Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, who was one of the executives in attendance, said in a release lauding Mr. Bessent’s move.

Mr. Bessent opened Tuesday’s events with a “fireside chat” with the Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, a former top economic official in Mr. Trump’s first administration. Both men raved about America’s business climate under Mr. Trump.

“The U.S. is at a very special place in the world because we are the A.I. superpower and we are pulling away in computing power,” Mr. Bessent said, crediting the administration’s regulatory, tax and energy policies. He said he had invited the other countries in attendance to “come with us and grow.”

The American economy is growing faster than many of its peers. The International Monetary Fund projects that the United States will grow more than twice as fast as the eurozone or Canada this year. Yet the I.M.F. noted this summer that the administration’s war in Iran had slowed economic growth. German economists say Mr. Trump’s war and his tariffs on Europe have dampened what otherwise has been the strongest year of German growth since 2022.

On Monday, European leaders used one of the open discussions to complain that Mr. Bessent had not informed them in advance of his plans to use America’s holdings of euros in an effort to boost the value of Japan’s currency, the yen. By using euros, Mr. Bessent pushed down the value of Europe’s currency while protecting the value of the dollar.

Joachim Nagel, the head of Germany’s central bank, said he believed that the criticism had resonated, and that American officials now understood why Europeans “were not really enthusiastic about the fact that there was no prior coordination.”

Mr. Klingbeil told reporters that Europeans had raised other concerns as well, both with America and with China, which has flooded many wealthy nations with state-subsidized exports of cars and other goods.

“The past few months have shown that uncertainty is poison for economic growth,” Mr. Klingbeil said. “The Iran war, the ongoing tariff disputes with the U.S. and distortions of competition like we are experiencing from China, all of this leads to instability.”

The most open conflict was between America and its northern neighbor. Mr. Bessent was dismissive of Canada in a CNBC interview from the summit on Monday, saying, “I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone who’s 13 times larger than you are.”

Before a meeting with Mr. Bessent on Tuesday, the Canadian finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, responded defiantly.

He planned to tell Mr. Bessent, he said, that “we’re going to defend our workers, our industries and Canada.”

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas have formally filed suit against the Kansas City, Kan., public schools over the school district’s guidelines pertaining to its transgender students, the department announced in a Tuesday news release.

The lawsuit comes after several months of back and forth between Wyandotte County’s largest school district and the federal government. The government has long maintained that the school district’s staff are facilitating “secret ‘gender transitions’ for children at school,” without telling parents about it.

KCKPS, meanwhile, has defended itself, claiming that it is not breaking any laws in this situation. Its internal guidelines surrounding students who wish to use different identifying pronouns at school include using the pronouns students ask to be called by.

The federal government argues that KCKPS moves forward with those guidelines without telling, or getting permission from, children’s parents, according to the release. It is considered a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), according to the suit.

The lawsuit, filed in the District of Kansas, asks that a federal judge declare that KCKPS has made those violations and that they order the district to stop enforcing any of those guidelines. It follows multiple threats of legal action by the DOJ and U.S. Department of Education, which have also said they’d try to revoke the local school district’s funding for refusing to address the alleged violations.

In April, the Education Department ruled that the district—as well as two others in Johnson County and one in Topeka—violated FERPA by not notifying parents when their children express they want to use different pronouns or names at school.

“For decades, schools operated with little accountability as federal parental rights laws like FERPA and PPRA went unenforced, allowing some districts to cut parents out of deeply personal matters involving their own children,” Linda McMahon, the U.S. secretary of education, wrote in the news release announcing the lawsuit.

“That era is over. The Trump Administration is enforcing these laws at an unprecedented scale and making clear that schools cannot hide sensitive information from parents and expect to operate with impunity.”

In a Tuesday statement, KCKPS—which serves more than 20,000 students among nearly 50 campuses—again maintained that it’s fully complying with the law and was disappointed by the DOJ’s decision to file suit.

“Because this matter is now pending in federal court, the district will respond to the Complaint through the appropriate legal process and will not make any further comment at this time,” according to the district.

The White House will host a press briefing on Thursday, marking the first briefing in over 40 days.

A White House official who confirmed the plans did not specify who would be briefing the press.

News of the upcoming briefing comes days after former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrapped up her final day in the role. Leavitt will continue to serve as an outside adviser to President Trump and will work with his super PAC MAGA Inc.

When Leavitt went on a roughly monthlong maternity leave earlier this year, a cast of characters from the administration took to the podium to brief the press, including Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

It’s unclear who will replace Leavitt, but a number of names have been floated. Potential contenders include CNN commentator Scott Jennings and former U.S. Attorney for the district of New Jersey Alina Habba.

Trump has given no indication he is in a rush to replace Leavitt, who said on her final day as press secretary that the president is “his own best spokesperson.”

ICE officers have not received guidance telling them they need to do anything in addition to their regular duties on the day of November’s midterm elections, a senior Homeland Security official told NBC News.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a news conference Tuesday in New York that ICE officers will be at a polling place only if “there is a threat to that polling place” or if officers are serving a warrant on someone “that we have been actively tracking down.”

“ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places,” Mullin said.

Asked whether ICE officers would enter polling places, Mullin said they would if they had warrants.

“If we’re serving a warrant, we will be where we need to be,” Mullin said.

President Donald Trump and Mullin have claimed without offering any evidence that there are over 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls across several states. Mullin recently threatened state election officials with possible prison time if they didn’t comply with the administration’s methods to determine whether noncitizens were on their voter rolls. Several state officials have pushed back against sharing private state voter roll data that includes personal information, such as Social Security numbers.

President Donald Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran as a way to deliver a decisive blow in a war that's dragged for six months.

Trump dismissed nuclear action as an option and lashed out at a reporter from NewsNation who asked about it during an Oval Office event on Aug. 31.

"I would never say that. But the answer's yes. I rule out ‒ there's no reason for it," Trump said when asked whether he can rule out using a nuclear weapon against Iran. "What a stupid question that is actually is. Here they are, they're totally defeated militarily. So now, I defeat them and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them? What a stupid question."

The only time the United States used nuclear weapons in war was against Japan in 1945 to end World War II, killing more than an estimated 200,000 people and setting off decades of efforts globally to prevent nuclear war.

The Trump administration has given no indication nuclear action is on the table in Iran. Former Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a onetime ally-turned-critic of Trump, this month alleged the Trump administration has discussed using nuclear weapons against Iran in strategy meetings. But Greene did not present evidence backing her claim, and the White House rejected the assertion.

From the beginning of the war, Trump has said the purpose for U.S. military operations against Iran is to ensure Iran never possesses a nuclear weapon. "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel would have been wiped out," Trump said on Aug. 31. "And they'd be hitting our cities at some point because they're sick people."

Although Trump ruled out nuclear warfare, the president earlier in the day signaled plans to attack Iran in response to retaliatory strikes Iran carried out against two U.S. bases in Jordan on Aug. 30. The strikes, which were intercepted before hitting the targets in Jordan, came in response to U.S. forces striking two Iranian launchers on Larak Island. It was the first time the United States attacked Iran since July 30.

"We're going to hit them hard," Trump told Fox News, according to reporter Trey Yingst, who spoke to the president by phone. "There will be a response."

The resumption in fighting comes after the Trump administration backed off military operations against Iran for the past month in favor of applying economic pressure through sanctions to try to achieve its aims.

Trump later called Iran "a failed nation" when asked by a reporter whether the new strikes are part of a limited campaign or a return to full-scale military operations. "That doesn't mean we won't smack them. We'll see what happens," Trump said from the Oval Office.

U.S. officials are defending their work with Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt in the unprecedented White House move to effectively gain control over huge oilfields in the country.

They're also confirming the Trump administration's support for Venezuela's elections.

Betancourt is the colorful and controversial figure who heads North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the oil company partnering with the administration in the agreement that gives the U.S. preferential access to output from 17 major fields.

The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital is taking a 35% equity stake in the company.

The U.S. also has the rights to buy 20% of the oil at cost after the company pays its taxes to Venezuela.

At a briefing with reporters Tuesday, a U.S. official talked up Betancourt as a "proven operator" in the country's oil sector that has been vetted by the administration.

The official also bluntly acknowledged the realpolitik in the effort to boost output in the country, which has vast reserves but modest oil production after years of mismanagement and underinvestment.

"There's a reality here, okay, and that is that not just here, but in other parts of the world, you have to deal with the dynamics sometimes that are in place in order to get to where you want to get to," the official said.

"I'm being blunt: we make choices like this all over the world."

"Geopolitics is often not the choice between the ideal and the imperfect. It is often, you're trying to navigate what's the best outcome, and you have to work with the factors that you have in place."

In prior conversations with Axios, two other senior administration officials acknowledged the troubles Betancourt has faced, but said they were worth the risk.

Catch up quick: Betancourt, 46, is the linchpin to Trump's plan to increase U.S. access to oil and strengthen its dominance in the hemisphere, which became clear after the Jan. 3 removal of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro.

His ties to the first Trump administration, anti-Maduro activity in 2019 and his help in the U.S. coup against Maduro made him the ideal partner for the administration, Axios reported.

"I'm not nominating anyone for sainthood here. What I am telling you is that this is a person that, in the past, has been helpful to the United States government," the official said.

And "there are no charges he's facing in the United States for violation of any of our laws."

In 2018, Betancourt was listed as an unnamed "conspirator" in a federal indictment of his cousin and seven others in a $1.2 billion international money-laundering scheme involving manipulated currency exchange rates between U.S. dollars and Venezuelan bolivars.

Betancourt was never charged in the crimes, which largely occurred between 2014 and 2016, because his attorneys successfully argued he was unaware of the scheme.

The crime involved Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA, properties in Miami and bank accounts in Switzerland, where authorities inexplicably revived the case last year, raided Betancourt's castle in Spain and left the billionaire stuck in his home country of the U.K. as he fought extradition.

This spring, as Trump needed Betancourt for the deal, U.S. officials interceded on his behalf with Swiss authorities, the Washington Post first reported. (U.S. officials dispute the reporting that the Swiss sent an arrest request to the U.S.)

Ultimately, Swiss officials acknowledged the case was in its early stages and that they didn't have enough to proceed, thereby restoring his passport in the U.K., which allowed Betancourt to travel to Caracas and D.C. to complete the deal.

The unusual agreement to expand output in Venezuela is facing questions about its legality, durability, and whether it's a form of neo-colonialism.

Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, said the oil agreement appears to have inconsistencies with Venezuelan law, which U.S. officials deny.

Washington "appears to be engineering something like a pseudo-national oil company," he wrote on X, adding the U.S. offtake rights, control of the new entities' board and other facets of the deal "echo British control over Persian oil a century ago."

U.S. officials say the deal will bring the capital and expertise to develop the Venezuelan oil sector for the benefit of the country's people, in contrast with the prior regime.

It's also part of wider competition with U.S. adversaries, Trump officials argue.

"Do we want Russia and Chinese companies controlling the the wealth of a country in our hemisphere, or do we want the United States, in combination and partnership with the Venezuelan people, having influence over those resources so that they benefit the Venezuelan people, which is in our interest?" the official said.

Contrary to the claims of critics, the official said, the deal "adds to the democratic transition … it lays the groundwork for that to actually happen and for Venezuela to have a chance to be a successful republic in the long term."

"The last thing we want to see is a new democratically elected government inherit a country in crisis," the official said, "because it undermines the actual project of bringing democracy to a country."

Betancourt rocketed to fame and infamy over lucrative Venezuelan power-plant construction contracts won by his company, Derwick Associates, in Venezuela between 2008 and 2011.

In 2013, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich sued Betancourt in federal court in New York for alleged kickbacks and other corrupt activity. Reich also accused Betancourt of defaming him and harming his consulting business.

The next year, New York federal prosecutors opened an investigation into Derwick.

Betancourt, his attorneys and spokespeople have denied wrongdoing and created a 19-page rebuttal to the accusations over Derwick that have dogged him to this day.

"No prosecutor in any jurisdiction has indicted Derwick Associates or its principals," the document says. "No court anywhere has entered a finding that the company paid a bribe, rigged a tender, or overbilled a contract."

Chevron is expected to announce a major expansion of its operations in Venezuela tomorrow.

A Virginia-based lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps sued the federal government this week, alleging the Defense Department unlawfully reduced her retirement pay because she is a transgender woman.

Avery Trainor was promoted to lieutenant colonel on March 1, 2024, court documents say. She hoped to continue her 27-year career for another decade, but last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to remove all transgender troops from the military. The Defense Department told troops they could either leave voluntarily or eventually be pushed out.

With approval from her superiors, Trainor agreed last fall to retire in June 2027 as a lieutenant colonel. Seven months later, on May 29, without explanation, Trainor was placed on administrative leave, court documents say, and her retirement date was pushed ahead to Nov. 1, 2026. Because the Marine Corps requires officers to serve at least three years before retiring as a certain rank, those moves reduced Trainor’s retirement pay to that of a major.

“She was effectively busted down in rank and slated for an exit from the Marine Corps that is normally seen only in misconduct cases,” her lawyer John M. Simpson wrote.

As a matter of policy, the Defense Department does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Trainor is one of several troops who say the Defense Department is unfairly holding back money as it pushes trans service members out. The Post has identified a dozen transgender troops who have not received the full amount of severance the military owes them.

Other troops have filed lawsuits against Trump’s transgender order, but according to court documents, Trainor is the highest-ranking Marine to be removed from her role because of her gender identity. A lower court temporarily blocked the order, but the Supreme Court allowed it to remain in effect while litigation continued. On Friday, the Trump administration asked the high court to overturn the lower court order.

The Navy’s highest-ranking officer told sailors during a town hall on Monday that it would be a while before the service would return to its main logistics hub in the Middle East after it was heavily damaged early in the Iran war.

Answering a displaced service member’s question about retrieving personal goods from the base they previously called home, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said the Navy would not be using Naval Support Activity Bahrain for the foreseeable future.

“We’re not getting back in there anytime soon,” Caudle said. “I just want to be completely honest with that.”

On Feb. 28, Iran struck NSA Bahrain with missiles and one-way attack drones after the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched strikes on the Islamic Republic.

The Pentagon initially reported zero fatalities and said the strikes did not significantly impact military operations.

Several months later, however, the true impacts of the strike are coming into focus.

Retired Navy Capt. John Cordle recently described the loss of NSA Bahrain as having “profound tactical and strategic repercussions.”

“The more we learn about the attacks on the U.S. Naval Support Activity in Manama, Bahrain, during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury, the clearer it becomes why the news of its near destruction was not initially reported or acknowledged,” Cordle said.

Moving supply hubs that were once hundreds of miles away to thousands of miles away will prove to be a major limitation to future maritime operations, he added

A sailor who was deployed aboard an Independence-class littoral combat ship during the Iran war told Military Times that they were unable to get food resupplies after NSA Bahrain was damaged.

After the damage, the Navy shifted to relying on a logistics hub at Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean that sits more than 2,000 miles away from the service’s carrier strike groups in the Middle East.

The distance required the sailors onboard the LCS to place food orders 30 days in advance, which proved challenging due to the unpredictable schedule of frenzied military operations.

At an Aug. 11 town hall in San Diego, military families told acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao that they were concerned about food shortages and declining morale aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln after the ship had not made an official port call in over seven months.

Damage to the Fifth Fleet headquarters, barracks, warehouses and communication towers at NSA Bahrain may lead to construction costs worth roughly $400 million, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.

Meanwhile, thousands of troops and their families are reportedly still in limbo, with many living in temporary lodging while waiting to be reunited with their belongings — and even pets — after the base’s destruction.

Vice Adm. Curt Renshaw, who leads the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, admitted during a recent virtual town hall with Navy families that the service is “making it up as we go because nothing is conceived to go on this length of time.”

“These are complex problems, and the solutions have not been exactly obvious,” Renshaw said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or blocked the promotions of more than 80 generals and admirals, a purge that has hit about 10 percent of the military’s top officers and shows no signs of slowing.

In recent days, Mr. Hegseth targeted seven Army officers who had been selected for two-star general rank by a board made up of senior Army leaders, according to current and former military officials, who discussed sensitive personnel matters on the condition of anonymity.

The moves come at a time when the military is badly strained by the Iran war, which has gone on far longer than administration officials anticipated.

The military, especially the Army, is also racing to keep up with the proliferation of sophisticated drones and precision missiles that have exposed the vulnerability of its overseas bases and weapons systems.

The firings and Mr. Hegseth’s refusal to explain the logic behind them are dividing the Pentagon and alienating many in Congress, the officials said. The latest to register his disapproval was Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, who recently submitted his resignation to Mr. Trump.

In a meeting with the president, Mr. Driscoll complained that Mr. Hegseth had fired some of the Army’s most combat-tested leaders, imperiling its efforts to modernize the force, military officials said.

He also warned Mr. Trump that the firings and blocked promotions have damaged morale, causing some in the military to question the fairness of a promotion system that is supposed to be apolitical and merit-based, senior officials said.

Mr. Hegseth’s purge does not appear to be driven by job performance, but rather is part of a broader effort by the defense secretary to fashion a force, particularly at senior levels, that is aligned with his political and ideological views, according to military officials.

Some senior administration officials, concerned about the leadership vacuum at the top of the Army, had pressed Mr. Driscoll to stay, officials said. Those concerns have spread to Congress; Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said he was “disappointed” to see Mr. Driscoll go.

“I’m hearing the same rumors as everybody else — that he was frustrated with some of his top generals being released, and that’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” Mr. Rounds said. “I think that points to questions that we’re going to be asking when we get back.”

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, defended Mr. Hegseth’s decisions as normal Pentagon business. “The idea that these lists cannot be altered is ridiculous; every single secretary has exercised this exact prerogative,” he said.

But senior officials and members of Congress have said that Mr. Hegseth’s moves are without precedent. In the past, the defense secretary and service secretaries have removed officers for moral or ethical breaches. But officials said that these officers have behaved in accordance with Pentagon policy.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called Mr. Hegseth’s removals “illegal.”

More than half of the officers affected by Mr. Hegseth’s dismissals are Black or female in a force whose senior ranks are dominated by white male officers. Of the seven officers Mr. Hegseth removed from the Army two-star promotion list, two are Black and two are female.

Last fall, Mr. Hegseth laid out his vision for the firings in a speech that he required all of the military’s generals and admirals to attend.

“We are clearing out the debris, removing the distractions, clearing the way for leaders to be leaders,” Mr. Hegseth said. “You might say we’re ending the war on warriors.”

That vision and the widespread firings that accompanied it increasingly conflicted with Mr. Driscoll’s efforts to lead the Army, officials said.

Mr. Driscoll sought to defend the integrity of the Army’s promotion system and advance the modernization vision that he and Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, had built. Mr. Hegseth fired General George in April without explanation.

Today the Army is dealing with its most deadly stretch since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Army air defense soldiers are playing the leading role in defending U.S. troops in the Middle East from increasingly sophisticated Iranian missile attacks. The Army’s command in Europe is providing critical intelligence and other support to Ukraine as it fights to hold off a larger Russian force.

And it is rushing to catch up with adversaries, like Russia and China, who have made rapid advances in drone warfare.

Mr. Driscoll, a Yale Law School classmate and close friend of Vice President JD Vance’s, had valuable connections in the White House. He had also won the trust of the Army’s senior officers and many in Congress.

But those relationships were of little help as Mr. Hegseth has consolidated his control over the Pentagon, largely by firing senior officers and replacing them with leaders he viewed as more loyal.

The purges have hit the Army most heavily.

Mr. Hegseth has forced out at least three senior officers who had been viewed as potential successors to General George. Mr. Hegseth’s choice for Army chief of staff, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, does not appear to have the votes needed to be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Hegseth came into the job complaining that there were too many generals in the military. In May last year, he ordered a 20 percent reduction of four-star officers. “A critical step in the process is removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions,” he said.

But his moves to fire officers and block promotions do not seem to be motivated by a desire to limit redundancies or improve lethality of the force.

One senior Army officer removed from the Army’s one-star promotion list recently had commanded the Army 173rd Airborne brigade in Italy and was described by officers as one of the best combat leaders in the infantry. He had led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned two master’s degrees from Columbia University.

The officer was pulled from the promotion list because officials in Mr. Hegseth’s office erroneously believed he had allowed a mentorship group for female paratroopers to exist in his unit and conduct an all-women’s airborne jump, Army officials said.

In fact, the group predated his command.

Rather than order it to shut down in compliance with Mr. Hegseth’s ban on affinity groups, the officer asked leaders of the group to rename it and open it to men. He was still pulled from the list.

Another person taken off the list is an intelligence officer who worked closely with the special operations community and played a key role in the development of the Maven system, which helps analyze intelligence and suggests targets for airstrikes. It’s not clear why she was removed.

The military has long prided itself on being one of the country’s most integrated institutions. More than 40 percent of the active duty military and its reserve components are people of color. But the people making crucial decisions about how and when those troops are deployed to combat are almost entirely white and male.

As a result of Mr. Hegseth’s moves, the military’s top ranks will be even more white and male for years to come. This year marks the lowest percentage of women nominated to general and admiral rank in at least 25 years, according to a New York Times analysis.

No women are likely to be nominated to admiral rank this year for the first time in more than a decade.

Mr. Hegseth has cast his firings as a cleansing of less qualified Black and female candidates.

“This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department,” he said in his speech to the force last fall.

Apple has changed the label on Lake Ontario to "Lake America," according to an Axios review of Apple Maps on Tuesday afternoon.

Apple is the second major digital map provider to make the switch. Google did so over the weekend — at least for those in the United States.

President Trump had reportedly asked Apple to make the switch last week, Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business on Monday.

Apple's decision comes less than a week after the president's executive order to rename the body of water along the U.S.-Canada border.

The company also eventually changed the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America" and Mount Denali to Mount McKinley last year when Trump renamed those sites via an executive order on the first day of his second term.

It's unclear if Apple took a stance similar to Google, which updated the name for addresses in the United States. Canadian users will see Lake Ontario if their site provider has switched its location settings to Canada.

International users outside of Canada will see Lake Ontario (Lake America) in Google Maps.

Apple did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment about the change.

Google said it made the switch because the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) had updated its maps, and Google follows those guidelines "to reflect name changes in official government sources."

Trump does not have the authority to unilaterally rename a shared body of water, and Canadian officials have said they will not call Lake Ontario "Lake America."

MapQuest, another digital map provider in the U.S., said it will not be changing the lake's name.

"Name it whatever you want at your leisure," the company wrote in a tweet that went viral.

The company has also seen an engagement boost since the post, with its app being ranked No. 1 among navigation apps and No. 8 overall on Apple's App Store chart. The app was No. 2 in Canada's store on Sunday night, per TechCrunch.

Vice President JD Vance claimed that he is “doing as much of God’s work as possible,” and added that he is at peace if doing so means bringing about the end times.

Vance sat for an interview on Monday’s edition of the Bryce Crawford Podcast, hosted by a 22-year-old evangelical Christian.

“What do you think about the end times?” Bryce Crawford asked, referring to the Christian belief that the world as we currently know it will someday end, and that Jesus will return. “Do you think it’s here? Do you think it’s coming?”

Vance replied that he has “always been fascinated” by eschatology and stated that the Antichrist, a figure in Christian lore who will allegedly pose as a Jesus-like figure, may be “walking among us.” The vice president also added that he is “ok” with his actions leading to the end times if that is what happens:

Do I think that we’re in the end times? I don’t know. And I think that it’s probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it because there are like, things that you gotta do. I gotta be good to my wife. I gotta be good to my kids. I have to be as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America. And so, I think that focusing on – while I’m fascinated by it – focusing on it is, too much of it can be very bad. I think that there are like, things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it.

[…]

So, I tend to think like, while I wouldn’t be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, ok. And if that leads to you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great too.

Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019. At the time, he explained, “I became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true. I was raised Christian, but never had a super-strong attachment to any denomination, and was never baptized. When I became more interested in faith, I started out with a clean slate, and looked at the church that appealed most to me intellectually.”

Vance is a former protege of billionaire Palantir founder Peter Thiel, who himself has fixated on the Antichrist. Earlier this year, Thiel delivered a series of lectures on the topic in the Vatican.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy faced a wave of backlash from critics on Tuesday after a 2024 Fox Nation clip resurfaced showing him discussing actress Sydney Sweeney’s breasts.

The comments came during a March 2024 edition of From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys. The show, featuring Duffy and his wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, was released on Fox Nation, the network’s on-demand video streaming service. The episode in question was titled “Can Sydney Sweeney Save America From Going Woke?”

“I’m gonna come back and give you my take on Sydney Sweeney’s breasts right after this break,” Duffy said in the clip.

“Alright, welcome back,” the transportation secretary continued, crediting his wife for recommending the NSFW topic. “Men appreciate women, and men that appreciate women are not toxic. God made us a certain way to appreciate and want to mate with a woman, and women are made the same way to want to be with a man and, um, I think Sydney Sweeney is just a reminder that men are still men. I’m sorry, we are.”

Independent journalist Karly Kingsley wrote on X Tuesday, “What a f***ing creep,” while Democratic strategist Mike Nellis added, “Why the f**k is the Secretary of Transportation on Fox News talking about Sydney Sweeney’s boobs?”

Not to mention, another clip from the same series resurfaced Tuesday, leading to further critical discourse.

“We have a ‘get in the mood’ playlist,” Campos-Duffy revealed in the snippet. “Let’s not lie about that. We call it our love playlist.”

In related news, six episodes of Duffy’s new YouTube reality show, The Great American Road Trip, were released earlier this month after the series was delayed as the transportation secretary worked to ensure it complied with federal ethics rules.

In one episode, Duffy warned his teenage daughter against attending Harvard University, arguing that the school had “professionalized” how to “take good, young girls like you” and “corrupt their minds.”

A 76-year-old man holding permanent US residency and grappling with stage four prostate cancer is reportedly being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Tacoma, Washington.

Federal immigration officials detained Loreto Javar during his US citizenship interview in Tukwila, Washington, in June. Javar, a Filipino national, moved to the US in 1995 and has lived in the country with his wife and daughter ever since.

According to court documents reviewed by the Seattle Times and reported on by the outlet on Monday, federal officials allege that Javar was involved in an altercation in the Philippines in the 1970s that left one person dead. Javar told officials at the time of his arrest in June that he had served about three years in jail in the Philippines before being released on parole, according to the documents cited by the Seattle Times.

Javar, a retired hotel worker, has renewed his permanent residency – or green card – several times without issue since moving to the US more than 30 years ago, including most recently in December, his daughter, Daisy Javar, told the outlet.

Loreto Javar applied for US citizenship in November 2025 and has no criminal history in the country, Daisy Javar added. Although her father had never told his family about his conviction before his detention by ICE, she said: “He’s been following all the rules, paying his taxes, everything.”

In a statement to the Seattle Times, an ICE spokesperson said Javar was arrested because he had failed to disclose a criminal conviction in the Philippines when he originally applied for a visa to move to the US in 1995 and join his father, who was already living in the country as a US citizen.

The ICE spokesperson said Javar’s disclosure would have made him ineligible to enter the US at the time of his original application, adding, “He is therefore ineligible to remain in the United States now,” the Seattle Times reported.

According to Daisy Javar, her father obtained police clearance from the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation as part of the process of securing his US visa at the time, the outlet also reported.

The Guardian has reached out to ICE for comment.

Javar as of Tuesday was being held at the Northwest ICE processing center in Tacoma, Washington. He was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in January and is prescribed two oral medications, as well as other medications for conditions including high blood pressure, the Seattle Times reported.

Speaking to the outlet, Daisy Javar said her father’s meals were often delivered late, with lunch sometimes not served until 6pm and dinner at midnight. She said the delays have complicated his medication schedule.

Meanwhile, an online petition organized by the Filipino migrant advocacy group Tanggol Migrante Movement calling for Javar’s release said: “Before his detention, [he] was actively receiving treatment for his Stage 4 Prostate Cancer, but since being taken into ICE custody, that course of treatment has been interrupted.

“So far, he has missed two oncology appointments that occur on the 4th of every month and has recently developed a blood clot in his stomach. The appointments are crucial to conduct bloodwork and adjust his medication to prevent his cancer from further developing.”

The petition added: “Furthermore, the Seattle Philippine Consulate has yet to provide concrete support despite promising [Javar] that they would help … The Philippine government and their overseas extension, the Seattle Philippine consulate, repeatedly fails to protect their nationals when they face detention, exploitation, abuse, or deportation.”

According to the petition, the Philippines consulate visited Javar and “promised to help him and provide him with $300 for his commissary, but they have yet to fulfill that promise”.

The Guardian has contacted the Philippine embassy and consulate general in Washington DC and Seattle, respectively.

Donald Trump’s administration has been pursuing a campaign of mass deportation throughout his second presidency. The president and his allies said the campaign would mainly target “violent criminals” and the “worst of the worst”. But a Guardian analysis of government records has found that the vast majority of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first during the first year of Trump’s second presidency had no criminal conviction.

A poll taken by PBS News, National Public Radio and Marist after immigration agents’ killings of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis in January determined Americans largely disapproved of ICE.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed – 62% – said they believed ICE had gone too far in enforcing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, the pollsters said.

A bombshell whistleblower report warns of serious flaws in the rush by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to implement President Donald Trump’s anti-mail voting order before November, including the potential for thousands of ballots to be rejected due to a single error.

“As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state – effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters,” reads the report, which was made public Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

It goes on to outline in detail how large numbers of voters could be disenfranchised, describing the USPS process as “entirely unforgiving.”

The report describes the whistleblower’s account as a “compelling warning of catastrophic failure which could derail the midterm elections.”

The report contends USPS has been secretly scrambling to build “new and untested” systems that under normal circumstances would take nine months to a year, or even more.

That has led to major problems with the systems’ technology, the whistleblower alleges.

“In the final days before the planned September 1 launch date, the Whistleblower is aware of multiple USPS officials describing the election ballot mail IT system development process as ‘a shit show,’” the report asserts.

Central to the scheme is the “Federal Ballot Mail Portal,” where states – under Trump’s order – would have to upload lists of people allowed to vote by mail. USPS has said it will refuse to deliver ballots if states don’t meet its standards, which also include new ballot envelope design requirements like the trackable barcodes.

“Nothing close to the extent and severity of this new USPS system and attendant processes seems to have existed before,” the whistleblower report reads.

The whistleblower, identified as an anonymous federal official, expressed concern that the “slapdash” software development process means the portal “will almost certainly have significant operating problems.”

“The Whistleblower also raises grave concerns that the administration has hidden the high likelihood that the new ballot mail verification processes will result in major disruptions in mail ballots ever getting delivered to voters,” the report states.

It also notes that USPS failed to include the “zero-percent failure policy” in its rule that was officially published on Aug. 26.

Trump’s order and the USPS rule implementing it are currently under a temporary restraining order as legal challenges play out in the courts. That order allows the agency to continue work on the portal so long as states are not required to take action.

If allowed to move forward, Trump’s order and the USPS rule would have enormous consequences on the mail voting process relied upon by 47 million Americans in the 2024 election.

“Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all,” the whistleblower report reads.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed concerns over rising bond yields Tuesday as a global sell-off in bonds quickened amid resumed fighting in Iran.

“I don’t think we are in any kind of a dire situation,” Bessent said during a fireside chat with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on the sidelines of the G-20 finance ministers meeting Tuesday.

By midday, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, which influences mortgage rates and other borrowing costs, reached its highest mark since January 2025. The yield on 30-year bonds also inched up toward a 20-year high that it’s been flirting with for a few weeks.

“The U.S. has the best performing bond market. What happens over a month doesn’t matter. … Since President Trump came into office Jan. 20, 2025, it’s been the best performing bond market among major countries in the world,” Bessent said.

Investors on Tuesday sold bonds, partly over worries that an impasse in the Middle East will continue to fuel inflation around the world and force central banks to raise interest rates to help keep prices in check.

Rising fuel rates have plagued American consumers and businesses this year, after the war in Iran sent prices for gasoline and diesel surging. While Trump once pledged the conflict would be a short-lived, it has stretched for months, pushing up inflation and Americans’ angst about prices.

The U.S. bond market might be performing better than some other countries’ markets, but that shouldn’t give Americans much comfort, said Rebecca Patterson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. It’s an “ugly beauty contest,” she said.

“If the yield is rising, what it means is that every financial instrument in the world anchored to a 10-yield rate goes up,” she said.

That rate influences a lot of things, including mortgages, auto loans and business loans.

Bessent spent Monday and Tuesday at a mountain resort in Asheville with other finance ministers from the world’s largest economies. He has argued that growth fueled by deregulation is the best way for members states, including the United States, to overcome their debt challenges.

The House cleared a stopgap funding patch Tuesday to keep cash flowing to federal agencies until mid-December — preventing a government shutdown before Election Day and setting up two major policy battles at year’s end.

The 370-48 vote takes care of Speaker Mike Johnson’s last must-pass bill before the midterms. But swift passage comes at a cost for House GOP leaders, who are now managing blowback from Republicans angry about the contents of the funding patch Senate leaders crafted and President Donald Trump endorsed.

The legislation would fund the government beyond the October start of the new fiscal year, keeping federal agencies running on current budgets through Dec. 11. It also allows incumbents to campaign for reelection without the threat of a government shutdown feeding into political messaging about dysfunction in Washington.

“We want to get a longer-term deal. But at a minimum, let’s ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday, noting the “chaos” and “uncertainty” of last year’s record-breaking shutdown.

Besides funding the government through mid-December, the bill would temporarily block the White House from finalizing a rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.

It would also delay a ban set to kick in next month on intoxicating hemp products — to the dissatisfaction of House hard-liners, who threatened to vote Tuesday afternoon against teeing up debate on other bills this week and potentially block any significant House floor action between now and November.

Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the Freedom Caucus, was among the Republicans who voted no on the funding patch and said he would oppose moving forward with debate on other bills too. He scoffed at the last-minute pressure campaign from the White House and hemp industry leaders promising to regulate intoxicating products in lieu of proceeding with the ban lawmakers enacted last November.

“They had 10 months,” Harris said in an interview this week, knocking the Trump administration for not taking action sooner to crack down on the products currently sold in the U.S. without age restrictions or other regulations. “There are profiteers who are making money on basically the health of our children, and I object to that.”

Trump is expected to sign the funding patch, which the White House endorsed last month ahead of Senate passage — even though it blocks the Office of Management and Budget from finalizing its controversial rule to overhaul the federal grantmaking approval process.

That Senate-added language, as well as a prohibition on new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, drove significant support from House Democrats.

“This critically stops the OMB rule from proceeding forward that many of us have been pushing against,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, cheering other “incredibly helpful” additions to the bare-bones stopgap House Republicans initially passed earlier this summer.

Democrats also hope to regain control of the House and Senate in the November elections and increase their leverage in December negotiations on government funding for the rest of the fiscal year.

“That’s the huge intervening event,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said this week about the election. “And it will impact whatever comes after it, no matter what anybody thinks. So it’s not like we’ll go back and pick up exactly where we left off.”

The Oklahoma Republican traveled to Ukraine and other European countries last month with his counterpart across the aisle, top committee Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.

The two top appropriators are motivated to strike a year-end deal to fund federal agencies with updated budgets, Cole said, rather than clearing another short stopgap or resorting to a lengthy patch that keeps programs on autopilot through next September

“We both are pretty adamant that we need to get these bills done before the end of the calendar year,” Cole said, adding that he and DeLauro will be “working really hard once we know who the players are on the other side” of Election Day.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has published a new webpage that will help carry out President Donald Trump’s plans to create a national voter registry and shape who can vote in the upcoming midterm elections.

It’s the latest sign that the administration is hurtling forward with plans to put Trump’s dangerous anti-voting March executive order into effect.

The order directed DHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to centralize data from across the federal government to create lists of eligible voters in all 50 states.

The new website, dubbed the “State Citizenship Lists Portal,” claims the lists are “coming soon.”

According to a memo it released in June, DHS plans to have the portal fully functional by Friday, Sept. 4.

Voting experts have said the federal government lacks the authority to create such lists, which could be used to challenge voters’ inclusion on state registration lists, and therefore their right to vote.

Combined, the lists sought by Trump would amount to a nationwide voter eligibility database managed by the federal government. No such thing has ever before existed because the U.S. election system is designed to be managed by states and localities, not the executive branch.

Privacy experts have also warned that the Trump administration would likely violate privacy laws in centralizing Americans’ personal data to compile the lists.

On Tuesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a privacy advocacy nonprofit, filed a lawsuit against DHS and SSA, challenging the effort as an unconstitutional attempt to seize control of elections.

“No statute authorizes Defendants to share and centralize vast volumes of Americans’ sensitive personal data across government agencies to create and disclose the ‘State Citizenship Lists,’” the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maryland, reads.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the field are expected to have body cameras by the end of September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a press conference in New York on Tuesday.

Asked by CNN whether the administration was still on track to distribute body cameras to the field, Mullin said: “We’re getting close. By the end of September, I’m pretty sure we will be there.”

“There’s also options we have. We have the permanent cameras that we’re trying to put on there,” he added.

The use of body cameras has largely garnered bipartisan agreement, particularly amid aggressive and sometimes deadly confrontations between federal agents and members of the public over the past year.

White House border czar Tom Homan has repeatedly said he supports agents having body cameras. “I’m a big proponent of cameras. I want the American people to see what the officer sees when he makes a decision,” Homan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Motorola is working with DHS on the mics that agents use, according to Mullin. “Some of the technology with some of the mics that all of these guys already wear, already have on them, have the ability for cameras too.”

Mullin is meeting with the Motorola CEO this week as part of those discussions: “We’re talking about how we can activate those faster too.”

ICE previously told CNN in a statement that the agency had acquired devices to equip ICE officers and agents with body cameras, adding: “Training required to equip individual officers remains ongoing and we expect to complete this training soon.”

ICE had also previously said it expected all field officers to have body cameras by the end of August.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin provided more details Tuesday about the kinds of operations which would see immigration agents enter polling places, as Democrats have worried the Department of Homeland Security could seek to interfere in November’s midterm elections.

Speaking to reporters in New York City, the Homeland Security secretary said that “ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places. We’re there to enforce specific threats.”

He added, however, that reports of specific undocumented immigrants at a location could be a reason for ICE to deploy.

“The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” he said. “ICE’s job is immigration, customs enforcement. That’s their job … if we’re serving a warrant we will be where we need to be.”

Those comments offer some of the most specificity DHS has provided to date about the kind of circumstances where immigration agents would approach a polling site. At Mullin’s confirmation hearing in March, Democrats pressed their then-colleague to clarify when ICE agents could be deployed to a polling site. At the time, Mullin said the “only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation.”

When asked for more clarity on Mullin’s comments Tuesday, DHS said in a statement that “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”

DHS also directed POLITICO to Mullin’s comments in March.

Democrats in recent months have raised the alarm about comments from Trump allies calling for the deployment of ICE officers to polling places, warning that such efforts could be intended to intimidate voters in states with House, Senate and gubernatorial elections this November.

While the Trump administration has downplayed any suggestion it’s planning such operations, the U.S. government — and DHS — have deployed considerable federal resources toward combating voter fraud. Immigration agents are reviewing states’ voter rolls to identify whether any immigrants who are not naturalized U.S. citizens have voted in recent elections.

“We will scrub all election records, looking for illegal aliens and those who are ineligible to vote, including those that somehow voted, yet they were deceased,” Mullin said in July.

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday it is proposing special flight rules near Trump International Airport in Palm Beach, Florida, citing ‌security concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

The FAA is proposing restrictions on flights in a one-nautical-mile radius and up to 2,000 feet around the Palm Beach residence, which is close to the airport.

The U.S. Secret Service sought the restrictions, citing adverse threat intelligence, and said the moves ⁠would "greatly increase the ability to mitigate the persistent risks posed by unauthorized aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems," the FAA said.

The FAA imposes expanded restrictions when the president or vice president travels outside Washington, and will continue to impose broader restrictions when Trump is at Mar-a-Lago.

The FAA will allow commercial airplanes into the airspace as long as they follow the established rules. Without the exception, it would essentially make the primary runway at ‌the ⁠Palm Beach airport unusable.

The FAA will also allow emergency, lifesaving and law enforcement aircraft access. For those operations, pilots would need to remain in two-way radio communication with air traffic control and have received authorization to enter.

In July, ⁠Palm Beach International Airport was officially renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport, the latest in a series of buildings and government programs named after the president.

The ⁠FAA has previously prohibited the operation of aircraft in the vicinity of seven presidential and vice presidential residences, most recently in 2001 near ⁠of Crawford, Texas, where former president George W. Bush owns a ranch. Those restrictions remain in effect, though their boundary was reduced in 2010.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday ‌that Pastor Darrell Scott will serve his administration as an adviser for tobacco ⁠health issues on a committee that advises the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"For far too long, tobacco-related ‌disease ⁠has taken an enormous toll on American Families, including Communities that have ⁠too often been overlooked and underserved," Trump said ⁠in a post on Truth Social.

New York’s attempt to make fossil fuel-producing industries pay into a $75 billion fund to repair the damage wrought by climate change was struck down by a federal judge, who said the sweeping law reaches beyond a state’s responsibility and into an area of federal interest.

The law, signed in 2024 by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, was challenged in court by a range of fossil fuel interests, business associations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 22 Republican state attorneys general and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes ruled Monday that the state’s climate law operated on territory governed by federal law for over a century and sought damages for the cumulative impact of conduct that has occurred nearly everywhere on Earth.

That, she wrote, conflicts with the need for a uniform national energy and environmental policy, and is otherwise not authorized by the federal Clean Air Act, which designates the EPA as the primary regulator of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Separately, trying to collect damages from foreign fossil fuel producers is preempted by foreign affairs doctrine, making it unconstitutional, Sannes wrote.

Climate change activists urged Hochul’s administration to appeal. A spokesperson for Hochul’s administration said “taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for damages caused by polluters” and that the administration was reviewing the decision to determine its next steps.

President Donald Trump’s administration previously challenged Michigan, Hawaii and Vermont over similar laws after he declared a “ national energy emergency ″ and ordered his attorney general to take action against states that may be illegally overreaching their authority in how they regulate energy.

In a statement, the Department of Justice said it is “delivering on President Trump’s order to protect American energy from state overreach.”

“New York’s law would have expropriated $75 billion from energy companies around the world during an energy emergency and in direct defiance of American foreign policy and federal law,” Adam Gustafson, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, said in a statement.

New York’s law had required companies responsible for substantial greenhouse gas emissions to collectively pay $3 billion a year over 25 years into a fund for infrastructure projects meant to repair or avoid future damage from climate change.

Lawmakers approved the bill to force big oil and gas companies to contribute to the cost of repairs inflicted by extreme weather events and to underwrite resiliency projects such as coastal wetland restoration and upgrades to roads, bridges and water drainage systems.

The biggest emitters of greenhouse gases between 2000 and 2018 were to be subjected to the fines.

The U.S.-Canada trade standoff is threatening to stretch past the midterm elections. The White House is shrugging off the threat.

With a week to go before Canada imposes its retaliatory tariffs — aimed at key industries in states like Ohio and Texas with competitive Senate elections — tensions between Washington and Ottawa are at a steady simmer, with no sign of de-escalation.

Trump administration officials are united in the posture that the U.S. has the upper hand in the trade war, and risks exponentially less economic fallout than Canada. And they are signaling that the Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, will have to be the one to offer concessions to restart talks.

Privately, Trump officials are telling industry groups that the offer Canadian negotiators rejected on Aug. 21 is now moot, and they are no longer willing to make the same concessions on steel and aluminum tariffs, in particular.

The Canadians, meanwhile, have drawn a red line at key U.S. demands, like maintaining a 25 percent tariff on medium and heavy duty trucks. And Carney’s decision to stand up to Trump after months of rhetorical attacks and threats have helped produce a surge of Canadian patriotism and support for his Liberal Party, evidenced by their clean sweep of three special by-elections Monday.

The prime minister has little reason to back down ahead of votes in October in two provinces with strong separatist factions, who could challenge his political coalition.

As a result, both governments are digging in and readying for a longer trade war, all but guaranteeing the standoff bleeds into the fall campaign season.

Asked how Washington and Ottawa can find their way back to the table, a person familiar with the talks said, “You’ve got to get past the local elections in Canada.”

In the U.S., many Republicans fear the trade war will cut the other way, hurting the president’s party in the November congressional elections. House Republicans requested a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later this week to discuss Trump’s new tariffs on Canada, amid rising unease in Congress.

The White House doesn’t believe the tariff tit-for-tat with Canada will really be a factor in the elections, however. Greer argued in an interview Monday with POLITICO Playbook that the duties are too small to move the U.S. economy, adding they are “more [Canada’s] emergency than ours.”

But polls show Trump’s trade policies are increasingly unpopular, and Democrats are determined to make them an issue over the next two months, particularly in border states with economies that are tightly intertwined with their Canadian neighbors’. Michigan Democrats launched new attacks Monday on Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers for refusing to denounce the tariffs, with Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed calling Trump an “asshole” for launching the trade war.

“They’re very damaging politically,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist and vocal Trump critic, referring to Trump’s tariffs. “They’re hurting his base vote and the voters that he needs the most.”

There is still plenty of time between now and November, however, for negotiators to return to the table. Carney’s “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation goes into effect on Sept. 8 and Trump’s counter-counter measure — a threatened 50 percent tariffs on autos and auto parts — won’t go into effect until New Year’s Day, a sign both sides want to give space to negotiate a future truce.

And despite Trump’s weekend Truth Social tirade against Canada and his decision last week to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” the president has shown a willingness to back down from his threats when presented with a good deal.

“Four months is, as you know, like an eternity for this president on tariffs. And so he gave them a lot of runway here to make their way back,” said one trade lobbyist, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

In Ottawa, the political boost Carney is enjoying for standing up to Trump and pulling his negotiators out of talks last month will likely start to ebb as the economic impacts of the trade war deepen.

The tariffs Trump imposed on Canada hit $20 billion worth of imports, only about 5 percent of what the U.S. imports from Canada annually. Canada’s tariffs on the US, likewise, hit the same value. But the figure lands far harder north of the border, since the U.S. takes nearly three-quarters of Canada’s exports.

Given the economic risk, U.S. officials believe Carny has another, non-economic motive — using the tension with the U.S. to influence two key votes in October. In Alberta, home to Calgary, voters will decide on Oct. 19 whether to hold a referendum to secede from Canada. In Quebec, the secessionist party, Parti Quebecois, is in prime position to gain seats in the province’s legislative body on Oct. 8.

In one of Monday’s special by-elections, however, the candidate from Carney’s Liberal party edged out a Quebec separatist in a district hit hard by U.S. tariffs, giving the prime minister and his government new confidence ahead of the fall votes.

Separatist leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, meanwhile, has vowed to not hold a referendum until Trump has left office to protect the issue from being “hijacked by the ups and downs of American politics.”

“Carney walked away for a reason,” said the trade lobbyist. “He’s going to continue to try to take advantage of this politically before maybe the concern about that very significant kind of ratcheting up of the economic pain on steel and autos could force him back to the table.”

Quebec’s French heritage has already emerged as a key sticking point in the trade negotiations with the U.S., with Carney’s government suggesting the U.S. tried to force Canada to back off a law that would require streaming platforms to promote French-language content in Canada.

Greer disputed that, saying the issue was really about Canada imposing its own regulations on U.S. companies and told the CBC “there is no way we would let a good deal go by for something like this.”

Canadian Minister for Trade with the U.S. Dominic LeBlanc said he “welcomed” the U.S. “withdrawing” its position on French language and culture requirements.

And Carney told reporters in Ottawa Tuesday morning that he viewed the offer the Trump administration made in August to lower some of its tariffs in exchange for trade concessions in Canada as unfinished work, not a done deal. “There were elements of that mutually beneficial deal that we were moving towards, which is why we were still at the table. But we never viewed that we had that deal, and it diverged towards the end,” Carney said.

“In my way of looking at it, both sides have opened the crack in the door to get back to the negotiating table,” said David Cohen, the U.S. ambassador to Canada under former President Joe Biden.

But the U.S. has also been clear that the original deal is now off the table — including a proposal to lower some metal tariffs from 50 percent to 25 percent, according to two people close to the administration, who were granted anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public. The domestic metals sector lobbied hard against that part of the tentative deal Trump announced on Aug. 18 — blowback that contributed to the deal unraveling days later.

In the meantime, Trump has continued to hammer the Canadians on Truth Social and in media appearances, suggesting the country has “ripped off” the U.S. for years.

Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association President Flavio Volpe, a member of Carney’s Advisory Committee on Canada-U.S. Economic Relations, predicted there would be more of that rhetoric before the two countries can restart talks.

“The [Trump] administration will need to get its Canada bashing campaign out of its system first,” Volpe said.

Carney echoed that in his remarks in Ottawa Tuesday, while adding that a mutually beneficial trade deal is still possible. “When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions.”