At an event hosted by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Tuesday, Donald Trump called for the Environmental Protection Agency to follow the ethanol volumes set by Congress in 2007 and to increase the volume of ethanol mixed into the nation's gasoline supply. "The EPA should ensure that biofuel... blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard]," Trump said in a speech just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses. The mandate has long been popular among Iowans, as 47 percent of the state's corn goes to ethanol production.

Trump's support came just hours after Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad attacked Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for his opposition to ethanol mandates, which Cruz sees as an "unwanted subsidy to corn growers," The New York Times reports. "I'm convinced he may well lose this because of his stand on ethanol," Branstad said in an interview about Cruz's chances in the first-in-the-nation caucuses, adding that Cruz is "heavily financed by Big Oil."

Trump, however, says he's "100 percent" behind the ethanol industry. "Energy independence is a requirement if America is to become great again," Trump said, seemingly reading from notes in a departure from his usual animated manner of speaking. "My theme is 'Make America Great Again.' It's an important part of it." Becca Stanek

President Trump this week signed an executive order designed to roll back environmental regulations that protect the world's oceans — and handed himself a business win in the process.

The executive order aims to "facilitate the economic growth of coastal communities and promote ocean industries," which, incidentally, include his own Trump-branded hotels and golf clubs. "Growing the ocean economy" could also grow his own profit margins, as many of his businesses rely heavily on coastal and ocean regulations, research gathered by Citizen Vox shows.

Trump loves to boast about his properties all over the world, some of which offer "spectacular panoramic Pacific Ocean views," and many of which are affected by environmental regulations that the golfing industry has vociferously opposed, deploying lobbyists to push against water and pesticide rules that rack up expenses for business owners.

Environmental groups in Chicago moved to sue one of Trump's hotels just days ago, accusing the company of violating clean water regulations and endangering fish and other wildlife in the area. Tuesday's executive order eliminates several regional planning bodies that were designed to keep an eye on local bodies of water and apply federal laws accordingly.

Critics like Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) have decried Trump's regulatory rollbacks, explaining how much Trump stands to profit from his time in office given that he has refused to divest fully from his business empire. Scrapping rules designed to protect bodies of water is explicitly intended to benefit the business community, and Trump explains as much in his executive order — without including the little detail that that community is one to which he belongs. Summer Meza

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Carpenter v. United States on Friday that law enforcement needs a warrant in order to track a person's location information from cellphone towers over an extended period of time, NBC News reports. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals on the decision, writing in the opinion that people "compulsively carry cellphones with them at all times," making monitoring that data "near perfect surveillance" akin to attaching "an ankle monitor to the phone's user."

The government had argued unsuccessfully that "cellphone users voluntarily reveal to their providers information about their proximity to cell towers" so customers "cannot reasonably expect that the providers will not reveal that business information to the government." Jeva Lange

Argentina's loss to Croatia in the World Cup on Thursday didn't knock them out of the tournament — yet — but the odds of the national team advancing out of the Group Stage are not looking good. The team, a perennial favorite at the World Cup, has only failed to win either of its first two Group Stage games once before; its 3-0 loss to Croatia was its worst defeat since falling to Czechoslovakia 6-1 in 1958, ESPN reports.

Naturally, this amounts to nothing less than a national tragedy in Lionel Messi-crazed Argentina. Argentine TV broadcasters went as far as to hold an extremely dramatic moment of silence after the defeat Thursday, which is much more hilarious that it sounds. Watch the somber affair below. Jeva Lange

President Trump values loyalty above nearly all else, but he's apparently willing to give Alabama Rep. Martha Roby (R) the benefit of the doubt.

Trump endorsed Roby on Friday, calling her a "consistent and reliable vote for our Make America Great Again agenda," despite her past questioning of Trump's morals.

After The Washington Post published a tape from Trump's 2005 appearance on Access Hollywood in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women, Roby withdrew her support for the then-presidential candidate. "I cannot look my children in the eye and justify a vote for a man who promotes and boasts about sexually assaulting women," Roby said.

Later, Roby seemed to come around to the man she had once called "unacceptable," eventually sitting down for a meeting with him in the Oval Office, reports Politico. She said she "looked the president in the eye and told him I was with him." Even though she was initially opposed to Trump, her aggressive effort to show him her newfound commitment to his administration has paid off — she reportedly called House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to thank him for helping spur the president's wholehearted endorsement in her upcoming primary battle. Summer Meza

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade had a rather stunning requirement for treating children in a way that isn't considered by doctors to be "government-sanctioned child abuse": their citizenship status. Speaking on Fox News on Friday morning, Kilmeade defended President Trump's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, saying: "Like it or not, these are not our kids. Show them compassion, but it's not like he's doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas."

Kilmeade added as justification: "These are people from another country." Trump signed an executive order Wednesday asking a federal judge to amend a court ruling to allow children to be detained indefinitely with their parents, rather than have them be separated at the border.

What he leaves out, of course, is that they aren't just people — they're children. While distinguishing between citizens and non-citizens is reasonable in certain situations when the people in question are adults, it's of course a whole different story when you're talking about unaccompanied minors. Watch Kilmeade's comments below. Jeva Lange

The heart-wrenching photo of a 2-year-old Honduran girl in tears, peering up at her mother and a Border Patrol agent, has quickly become the defining image of President Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, which for weeks resulted in the separation of immigrant children from their parents. While the image, taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John Moore, has spread like wildfire, appearing on the cover of Time as well as on this website, CBS News writes that the picture "might be a little bit misleading," because the daughter and mother were not actually separated, as other families have been.

"We were patrolling the border. It was after 10 o'clock at night," recalled Border Patrol agent Carlos Ruiz, who was the one to come across mother Sandra Sanchez and her daughter in Texas. "We asked her to set the kid down in front of her ... So the kid immediately started crying as she set her down. I personally went up to the mother and asked her, 'Are you doing okay? Is the kid okay?' and she said, 'Yes. She's tired and thirsty. It's 11 o'clock at night.'"

Moore, who captured the photo during a ride-along with Border Agents, feared the mother and daughter would be separated after being taken to a Customs and Border Protection processing center. "I took only a few photographs and was almost overcome with emotion myself," Moore told Getty Images' blog "Foto."

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, claims to have spoken to the father of the 2-year-old, who told the paper, "You can imagine how I felt when I saw that photo of my daughter. It broke my heart." Read more of the backstory behind the picture at "Foto," and about the mother and daughter's status at CBS News. Jeva Lange

President Trump said Friday that "Republicans should stop wasting their time on immigration" until enough GOP senators are elected to override a potential Democratic filibuster. "Even if we get 100 percent Republican votes in the Senate, we need 10 Democrat votes to get a much-needed immigration bill," Trump said in a tweet, vowing that if more Republicans get elected, "we will pass the finest, fairest, and most comprehensive immigration bills anywhere in the world."

Although the Republican Party has control over both chambers of Congress, Trump insisted that "we can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!" On Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) pushed back a compromise immigration bill vote because leadership felt they did not have the 218 votes needed to pass the measure; there are 235 Republicans in the House. Jeva Lange