What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday signed proclamations imposing 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian imports, claiming that America’s second-largest trading partner has unfairly discriminated against U.S. cars, alcohol and dairy products. The tariffs, set to take effect in 30 days, rely on Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which has never been used to levy import duties and is untested in court. Some products, like energy, would be exempt, but the new tax will apply to goods that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, the White House said in a fact sheet.

Who said what

The new tariffs “could unleash a new wave of economic chaos, with risks of higher inflation and further fraying of relations” with Canada, The Associated Press said. A senior administration official “said that Canada was one of the only nations other than China that retaliated against Trump’s previous tariffs and must be held accountable.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that “Canada, as is its right,” had “merely matched” Trump’s tariffs, but his country “stands ready to engage intensively” to address a “trade dispute” that “has raised costs for families, particularly in the U.S.”

What next?

The new tariffs would apply to nearly $20 billion of Canadian goods, the White House said, or roughly 5.2% of Canadian imports last year. But Trump’s “invocation of 338 is the nuclear option,” threatening all U.S. trading partners and injecting “massive uncertainty” into the global economy, Cato Institute economist Scott Lincicome said to the AP. “We crossed the Rubicon.”

‘Trump’s war on journalists’

Ruth Marcus at The New Yorker

President Donald Trump “seized on another opportunity to threaten journalists,” as New York Times reporters “received subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury,” says Ruth Marcus. The Justice Department has “depicted the subpoenas as a benign move,” but “journalists’ access to information will evaporate if they cannot assure their sources of confidentiality.” This “risk is omnipresent, but it is heightened in the current moment, when reporting about the inner workings of government is more crucial than ever.”

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‘Vamos España? Why this World Cup victory for Spain feels so different from the others.’

María Ramírez at The Guardian

Spain’s FIFA World Cup victory “felt as though the success belonged to many more people around the world, from Gaza, where Spain has come to represent solidarity with the Palestinian cause, to Brazil,” says María Ramírez. The “country itself is in a better place despite the deep political polarization and widespread mood of dissatisfaction.” Spain’s “strength on the pitch lies not in individual brilliance but in a cohesiveness that becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”

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‘AI will shift “prestige careers” to talent, not pedigree’

Marcus Collins at Newsweek

Amid the “broader discourse about AI’s impact on jobs, there’s been a lot of chatter about AI obliterating what many think of as the ‘prestige’ career track,” says Marcus Collins. With “execution available at the touch of a button, the white-collar prestige career bargain is collapsing.” For “people who were counting on it, this may feel like the end of the world,” but “for the people who were never on that path, the future is as bright as ever.”

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‘Too many congressional races are over before they start. Here’s a remedy.’

Mark Z. Barabak at the Los Angeles Times

As “recently as the late 1990s, around four in 10 congressional districts were considered competitive,” but today “only 18 of 435 House districts are considered toss-ups,” says Mark Z. Barabak. This is “hardly an accident, as lawmakers have increasingly manipulated the election process to suit themselves, rejiggering congressional districts to sideline voters and boost their political parties.” Congress should “enact changes in time for the next scheduled round of redistricting, which is due to take place after the 2030 census.”

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Lindsey Graham was “the quintessential politician of this era,” said Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. The Republican senator from South Carolina, who died unexpectedly of a ruptured aorta last week, launched his career in 1994 as “a fervent American patriot” with a hawkish foreign policy, but ended it as a fawning acolyte of Donald Trump. A gifted speaker with a folksy, disarming wit, the early Graham “took seriously the practice of American democracy,” seeking to forge bipartisan alliances on legislation with such unlikely partners as senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. When Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2016, Graham “recognized him immediately for what he was,” calling him a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who was “unfit for office.” But when Trump won, Graham abandoned his “idealistic patriotism,” wooed the new president with fawning flattery, and became “a loud, opportunistic collaborator.”

Graham’s career could be “divided into two parts, each defined by a personal allegiance to one of two different men: John McCain and Donald Trump,” said Gerard Baker in The Wall Street Journal. In the House of Representatives, Graham was a “loyal lieutenant” to fellow military veteran McCain, supporting his failed 2000 presidential campaign over the overwhelming favorite, George W. Bush. Elected to the Senate in 2002, Graham joined senators McCain and Joe Lieberman to form the “Three Amigos,” who believed that America should use its military and strategic power to be “a force for profound good in the world.” But Trump’s victory in 2016 sparked “a head-spinning transformation,” said Peter Baker in The New York Times. Graham became Trump’s “most important ally in the Senate,” and “made no apologies for his shift. This was politics.”

No politician I’ve covered “got more joy from serving in office” than Graham, said Jonathan Martin in Politico, “or more deeply craved the influence it conferred.” When Trump took over the GOP, “the choice was to adapt or leave, and that was no choice at all for Graham.” Cynically cozying up to Trump made him—as Graham himself put it—“relevant,” and enabled him to promote his own long-standing policy goals, including the bombing of Iran. Now that Graham is gone, “the question—was it worth it?—may never be answered, or perhaps will be up to Trump’s behavior in his final two and a half years in office.”

What happened

The U.S. military early Monday morning completed a ninth consecutive night of airstrikes on Iranian targets, and Iran again fired missiles and drones at Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. The Pentagon said a U.S. service member was killed in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone, and human remains were found at a military base in Jordan hit by Iranian strikes last week. That attack killed two U.S. troops, and if the remains are confirmed to be a soldier missing since the strikes, the U.S. death toll from the Iran war will be 18. Iran said U.S. strikes had killed at least 50 people since a ceasefire collapsed this month.

Who said what

The U.S. hit Iran “very hard again” throughout the night “in honor of” the “great patriots” killed, Trump told reporters. “We feel very badly,” but “those great people” were “fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Iran has been “stepping up” its strikes on Jordan “as it seeks to produce American casualties and deter Washington from escalating its test of wills with Tehran,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

“Even larger American attacks may be coming” as “more U.S. warplanes head to the Middle East,” the Journal said. “The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” a U.S. official told The Washington Post, but with dwindling munitions stockpiles and growing battle damage, “we do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that.”

Things are very difficult in Cuba. Since February, the country’s power grid has suffered three nationwide blackouts: there is currently electricity for two hours a day at most in Havana, and less in rural areas. Mains water works roughly every other day. The average monthly wage, in real terms, is under US$20. Food production has fallen drastically; shortages are common. Petrol is prohibitively expensive. Cuba’s once-impressive healthcare and education systems are in tatters.

Tourism – the island’s main economic lifeline – was down 58% in the first five months of 2026 compared with the year before. Long-haul flights there have stopped because they can’t refuel. Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and chikungunya have staged a comeback, and the UN reported last month that child mortality has risen sharply. An estimated fifth of the population has left since 2021.

Why is this happening?

Cubans have endured decades of mismanagement from their own communist government, along with economic warfare from the US – but the past few years have been particularly harsh. Cuba invested heavily in tourism and underinvested in healthcare during the 2010s, only to see both sectors heavily impacted by the Covid pandemic. Miguel Díaz-Canel, who in 2021 became the nation’s first leader not from the Castro family since 1959, ordered a crackdown that year on the largest wave of protests seen for decades.

But the main cause of the present trouble is a US oil blockade, which began in January – the biggest such action since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Trump at the same time issued an executive order designating Cuba a national security threat – and called on Cuba’s leaders to “make a deal before it is too late”.

Why does the US think Cuba is a national security threat?

It didn’t offer specific reasons beyond Cuba’s alliances with Russia and China, along with claims that it “destabilises the region through migration and violence”. Cuba’s communist regime has historically been a bugbear for the US, particularly for Republicans. And Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants, favours regime change.

But the timing suggests that the decision to tighten the screws was inspired by the successful US action against Venezuela on 3 January – and, more broadly, by Trump’s desire to assert US primacy in the western hemisphere. In March, the president told reporters he believed he’d have “the honour of taking Cuba... I think I can do anything I want with it.”

What’s Venezuela’s role in this?

Venezuela became Cuba’s main regional ally in 1999, when Hugo Chávez’s left-wing government began supplying Fidel Castro with cheap oil. The alliance continued under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, and until this year, 75% of its oil imports came from Venezuela and Mexico. But after seizing Maduro in January, killing 32 Cuban security personnel in the process, the US made Venezuela cut off Cuban oil supplies; Mexico did the same under the threat of tariffs. The island requires around 100,000 barrels of oil per day for its power stations and infrastructure to function; since January, episodic shipments have only given short-term relief.

It now seems that the Trump administration is looking for a similar outcome to Venezuela: sources told The Wall Street Journal they were aiming for regime change by the end of 2026.

What are the US demands?

They haven’t shared them in public, though the Cuban government confirmed in March that talks were taking place. Trump’s previous actions suggest that his definition of regime change is flexible. In Venezuela, the US left Maduro’s government in place under the control of his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez; the country was forced to open up its oil and mining to US investors, but not to democratise. In the case of Iran, similarly, Trump has shown himself willing to treat a change of personnel at the top as regime change. The Cuban leadership may feel they have some wiggle room; in June it announced a package of 176 free-market reforms in an effort to placate the US. But there are big obstacles to a political settlement on both sides.

Why might a deal be difficult?

A law from 1996 prohibits the US from recognising any Cuban government that includes Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother, who is still, aged 95, a major figure in Cuban politics. Florida’s Cuban-American community, a key part of Trump’s voter coalition, would also object to any deal that did not mean the end of the regime. The US might settle for custody of Castro, who was indicted this May by a Florida grand jury for his part in shooting down two planes belonging to a Cuban exile group in 1996.

But the Cubans are unlikely to agree to that, and there is no plausible opposition party or Delcy Rodríguez-like figure to deal with – though Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, a reputed playboy who’s close to the Cuban military’s wealthy holding company, is said to have been auditioning for the role.

What if there’s no deal?

An American invasion looks unlikely: Trump is clearly wary of that level of commitment, and has his hands full trying to extricate himself from his “excursion” in Iran. Cuba’s military isn’t the fighting force it used to be, but the country has been resisting US pressure since 1962, and it’s difficult to see the Cuban elite colluding – as some of Venezuela’s did – with a theatrical special-forces raid on Raúl Castro or Díaz-Canel. Castro’s age may be the best hope for a solution, but Cuba has been a one-party state for generations, and with the Trump administration on the opposite side, any transition is likely to be messy.

From the point of view of ordinary Cubans, however, something has to give. “Living like this is agony,” Meyboll Font, a 51-year-old Havana resident, told Agence France-Presse last week.

What happened

President Donald Trump repeated his longstanding grievances about the security of the American voting system in a primetime speech Thursday. The president claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are “inherently corrupt”; voting machines are “easily compromised”; China interfered with the 2020 elections; and 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote. He called on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would severely tighten ID rules for voters.

Who said what

These “unsubstantiated claims” are based on “incomplete” data with “no underlying evidence,” Bloomberg said. “All we got is more rehashed, debunked conspiracy theories,” David Becker of The Center for Election Innovation & Research told CBS News. The speech comes as Republicans are “facing the prospect of losing one or both chambers of Congress in ​November,” Reuters said.

What next?

The SAVE America Act “lacks the necessary support” to clear the Senate, NBC News said, but House Republicans want to “force the bill through” without Democratic support by weaving parts of it into a new reconciliation bill. It’s “far from clear” this legislation “will have enough support to pass,” The New York Times said.

Donald Trump used a prime-time address to the nation to allege Chinese interference in US elections in a move that looks to undermine voter confidence ahead of November’s midterms.

The White House released documents alleging that “over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle” the Chinese government carried out “what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files”. Trump did not make clear, though, how the alleged Chinese activity could have helped Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.

“Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden,” Trump said.

While China has denied the allegations, “none of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results – including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost – were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome”, said Marshall Cohen and Kevin Liptak on CNN.

What did the commentators say?

The speech “marked a striking effort by Trump to marshal the resources of the intelligence community to support his claims about election meddling and legislative agenda to tighten voter registration rules”, said Lauren Fedor in the Financial Times.

It’s true that “foreign powers do, in fact, try to influence American elections”, said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic. But that “was about all that the president – who seems shocked that other nations have preferences about who wins elected office in the United States – got right”.

The classified revelations, despite what Trump tried to claim, in fact “show that the intelligence community didn’t even agree” that China was fully engaged even in a more limited campaign of influence.

In his address Trump was plainly looking “to soothe his wounded ego over the 2020 election”. But he also might have “a darker motive”. In “attacking the integrity of American elections”, Trump could be seeking to delegitimise the upcoming midterms “and perhaps even create the predicate for interfering in them”.

In his address, Trump has “destroyed any confidence in the integrity of US elections for Americans inclined to believe him”, said Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine. In doing so he has set up “a certain challenge to any midterm results adverse to his party”. When Republicans “desperately needed him to make concrete proposals for improvements in living costs”, Trump instead “dragged the GOP down the election denial rabbit hole farther than ever”.

What next?

Republican politicians who would like the president to focus on the cost of living “have been wary of Trump’s unrelenting claims about flaws in the electoral system”, said the FT.

Senate majority leader John Thune “has resisted pressure from the White House to scrap Senate rules” in an effort by Trump to push through the Save America Act. This would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, among other measures.

The accusations Trump made could also “complicate a fragile trade truce between the US and China”, said CNBC, while also “casting a shadow over Chinese President Xi Jinping upcoming visit to Washington” in late September.

‘The International Criminal Court, an imperfect but essential safeguard against impunity’

Le Monde editorial board

International justice is “not perfect, and at times those who uphold it may undermine it,” says the Le Monde editorial board. This does “not justify the all-out offensive launched by United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio against the International Criminal Court (ICC).” Washington has “consistently campaigned against an institution established to limit the principle of national sovereignty — a principle often invoked by perpetrators of the gravest crimes, whether heads of state or political leaders, to escape prosecution.”

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‘Yemen is edging closer to renewed confrontation’

Ahmed al-Shalafi at Al Jazeera

Yemen is “slipping out of its fragile de-escalation and back into the heart of regional tensions,” says Ahmed al-Shalafi. An incident “involving the Iranian aircraft that entered Yemeni airspace was not merely a dispute over a flight.” It “exposed the extent to which the war in Yemen has become intertwined with the confrontation between the United States and Iran, and raised an old question in a new form: Can Yemen remain outside any broader regional escalation”?

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‘Brace yourself for the AI public relations blitz’

J.B. Branch at the Chicago Tribune

While “some AI products have proved fun or useful, Americans are increasingly suspicious of the technology as a whole,” says J.B. Branch. But the “tech bros see it as nothing more than a serious public relations problem. So get ready for the rehabilitation campaign.” Americans “shouldn’t buy that narrative,” as companies “cannot spend two decades building social media platforms that fuel misinformation, destabilize institutions and harm children, and then expect approval for a new technology that will hyperscale these problems.”

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‘Trump’s DOJ is now targeting The New York Times for basic reporting’

Shirin Ali at Slate

Donald Trump is “angry with The New York Times again and has deployed his usual tactics, weaponizing his position of power to take the newspaper to court,” says Shirin Ali. Journalists “often use anonymous sources in order to report on sensitive information, as well as to protect the identities of sources, who often risk their jobs and safety.” But the “Trump administration, though, has been one of the most aggressive and antagonistic in U.S. history against journalists.”

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Polls matter, but the stock market might be President Donald Trump’s favorite barometer of success. “Everybody’s profiting” when the markets rise, he said to reporters recently. But that’s not quite true. Rising stock prices are nonetheless a consolation for the president, and shaky market responses to controversial policies have spurred him to shift course on tariffs and war with Iran.

‘Economic pressure’

The president “considers market reaction a key measure of success,” said The Washington Post. The metric helped launch the now scuppered attempts to end fighting with Iran. Markets have reacted badly to surges in fighting — the S&P plunged Monday after the U.S. reimposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz — but “every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship,” Trump said to reporters last month as he explained his attempts to reach a deal.

Most presidents “play down the idea that they are susceptible to economic pressure” when making foreign policy, the Post said. But Iranians decided that Trump’s devotion to Wall Street and its negative reaction to the Strait of Hormuz closure “gave them leverage” to take a harder line and extract concessions, Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney said to the outlet.

Trump’s close attention to stock indexes “risks conflating the fortunes of ‌financial markets with the broader experience of U.S. households,” said Reuters. Roughly 40% of Americans “do not have money in the markets.” And the markets do not measure the health of private firms or small businesses that serve as the “backbone of the U.S. labor market.”

The stock market has grown by $15 trillion since the president began his second term, though that is mostly held by the richest 1% of the country. A poor response to Trump policies seems to matter mainly “when corporate or financial interests are at stake,” Groundwork Collaborative’s Alex Jacquez said to Reuters.

‘Not the litmus test’

The president’s new “Trump accounts” for newborns are expected to draw more young Americans into “long-term wealth-building” through stock markets, said Yahoo Finance. But the markets are “not the litmus test the American public wants” from the presidency, Ali Vitali said at MS NOW. Trump’s recent financial disclosures revealed “billions in wealth growth for the president and his sons,” but the voters “standing at gas stations” and paying higher prices at the pump probably find it “unfair.”

Stock investors have figured out to “pounce” when Trump shows signs of “buckling” on unpopular decisions, Katie Martin said at the Financial Times. Still, the bond markets that buy and sell federal debt are telling a different story about Trump’s policymaking. U.S. bonds have “never recovered from the drop in price” they experienced at the start of the Iran war. And there are signs that “large, conservative investors” are “reducing their exposure to risks around U.S. institutional credibility” and moving to Canadian and European bonds instead. That means American officials “will have to work a little harder” to keep attracting the bond investors they need to “balance the books.”

With President Donald Trump’s refusal to either sign or veto a landmark bipartisan housing bill, the legislation automatically became law last week, and political analysts are hopeful the bill will help ease the pain of America’s nationwide housing crisis. But while experts laud Congress’ joint efforts to address the problem, the average American may not feel relief for years.

What did the commentators say?

The bill has a number of provisions that seek to “remove barriers to building homes, lower housing costs and shift greater control over housing to the local level,” said Time. One of the main goals is to increase the overall availability of houses, largely by mandating that the government “offer guidance on how communities could best reform zoning and land-use policies to reduce barriers to housing development.” Environmental reviews of housing construction will also be streamlined.

It also widens the definition of manufactured houses, which are “built entirely in factories before being transported to their sites,” said Time. The expanded definition will “‘unlock’ a segment of the housing market by making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce such homes,” Francis Torres, the housing and infrastructure director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Time. The current supply is “really not matching the growing and changing demand,” said Geoff Smith, the executive director of the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University, to WTTW.

The bipartisan nature of the bill, which easily passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, “reflects both parties’ concerns with rising housing costs nationwide and shows that political compromise is still possible in Washington,” said The Dallas Morning News editorial board. If properly implemented, it has the potential to “modernize federal housing programs, streamline regulations and encourage innovation.”

But the effects of the bill may not be so profound for those in the worst financial situations. It will likely have a “fairly limited impact on affordability for the lowest-income folks in the country,” said Shamus Roller, CEO of the National Housing Law Project, to PBS News. The provisions “aren’t the kinds of sweeping policy changes many affordable housing advocates say will help dramatically reduce housing costs,” like major tax reforms and government-subsidized housing investments.

What next?

The legislation may take time to be effective because “many pieces of the legislation will require implementation from the now-diminished” Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), said PBS. About 32% of HUD’s workforce has left the agency since September 2024, according to the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which could make it hard to bring some of the bill’s provisions to life. As of 2024, no states in the U.S. had an adequate supply of affordable housing for low-income renters, said the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

So even as many are hopeful about the new promises, some “immediate relief may not come just yet for homeowners and renters,” said Yonah Freemark, a housing research associate at the Urban Institute, to CNN. The bill creates a “situation where not only will the federal government have to make changes, but then state and local governments also will have to make changes and then businesses, developers and the like will have to make investments, which itself takes time.”

What happened

The Trump administration on Tuesday ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to suspend most vehicle stops after two fatal shootings by federal officers in the past week. The deaths of Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado ⁠Araujo in Texas “brought to at least seven the number of people shot dead” during ICE enforcement operations since January 2025, Reuters said. An unnamed 28-year-old Mexican national also died Tuesday in Florida after being struck by a tractor-trailer while reportedly fleeing ICE agents.

Who said what

“In the United States, in 2026, whether someone runs or complies with ICE, death is a very real possible outcome,” Florida Immigrant Coalition spokesperson Adriana Rivera said. Pausing vehicle stops “could hamper the agency’s ability to increase arrests,” said The New York Times, at a time when ICE faces “increasing pressure to deliver on the president’s promise of mass deportations.” The pause applies solely to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and “not Homeland Security Investigations, which primarily handles criminal investigations,” CBS News said.

What next?

The stoppage is expected to be temporary while ERO officers “receive additional training on vehicle-stop tactics,” CBS News said. President Donald Trump also contradicted the stoppage, saying the stops should continue. “We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” he wrote on social media.

There have been few global figures in the modern era as consequential as Donald Trump. Powerful as he may be, though, Trump does not exist in isolation.

Instead, he is part of an elite echelon of elected officials with whom he is obliged to interact in the course of global business. After a decade of cutting deals, upending relations and generally maneuvering himself to the center of the world stage, here are some of the ways Trump has talked about — and to — his international peers.

Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad.” — April 2018

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

“The future governor of Canada.” — March 2026

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi

“My favorite dictator.” — September 2019

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

“Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!” — October 2019

“He’s a hell of a leader.” — October 2019

“Sometimes you get along with the toughest people, like him.” — July 2026

Chinese President Xi Jinping

“We’ve become friends.” — June 2019

“I don’t want to say friend — I don’t want to act foolish, ‘he was my friend’ — but I got along with him great.” — October 2024

“He’s a brilliant guy, whether you like it or not.” — October 2024

“A friend.” — May 2026

Former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei

“One of the most evil people in history.” — February 2026

Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni

“A very successful, very successful politician.” — October 2025

“Do people like her? I can’t imagine. I’m shocked by her. I thought she was brave, but I was wrong.” — April 2026

“It’s her who’s unacceptable.” — April 2026

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel

“Stupid.” — Unknown 2020

“That bitch, Merkel.” — Unknown 2020

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel’s “Warrior Prime Minister.” — June 2026

“Crazy.” — June 2026

“He has no f**king judgement.” — June 2026

Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador

“Juan Trump.” — July 2019

Russian President Vladimir Putin

A “competitor” who is “not an enemy.” — July 2018

“Great guy” and a “terrific person.” — June 2019

A “genius” who is “pretty savvy.” — February 2022

“Absolutely CRAZY!” — May 2025

“I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin.” — May 2025

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

A “great leader.” — July 2026

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.” — March 2026

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

“He’s two-faced.” — December 2019

“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” — December 2024

North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un

“This maniac sitting here.” — September 2015

“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” — September 2017

“Obviously a madman.” — September 2017

“I think you will have a tremendous future with your country, a great leader.” — February 2019

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

“His reputation is absolutely sterling.” — September 2019

“Dictator without elections” who “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.” — February 2025

“I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy, and I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States.” — February 2025

A “difficult character.” — July 2026

“President Putin.” — July 2026

What happened

A federal judge on Monday accused President Donald Trump of attempting to “manipulate the judicial process” when he sued the IRS for $10 billion in January over his leaked tax returns. Trump eventually struck a deal with the Justice Department that granted him immunity from tax audits and created the now-defunct $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for his allies. But Monday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams bars him, his family and his lawyers from citing the deal in future legal proceedings, potentially voiding Trump’s tax immunity. Williams also suggested that Trump’s legal team in the case, including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, should be sanctioned.

Who said what

Trump’s lawsuit was clearly “an attempt to use the court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the president,” Williams wrote in her ruling. A group of 35 former judges who pushed Williams to examine the case called her ruling a “resounding victory for the rule of law.”

But it’s “unclear” whether the ruling’s restrictions “could practically limit the tax protections it laid out for Trump and his family,” The Washington Post said. A Justice Department spokesperson accused Williams of being a “partisan judge,” and insisted Trump and his family were “victims of admitted violations of law.”

What next?

Although its “practical impacts” may be limited, the decision still “amounts to a scathing rebuke,” The Associated Press said. It also “tees up a politically uncomfortable line of questioning” for Blanche, who faces the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing this week.

Tensions between Iran and the US are ratcheting up a new notch. Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, has said “revenge” for the death of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out”. Donald Trump has called Iranian leaders “scum”, and said any attempt by Tehran to assassinate him will be met by bombings “at levels they’ve never seen before”.

Meanwhile, both countries have renewed air strikes, as Iranian hardliners insist on control of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, “their principal source of strategic leverage”, said US-based security think tank The Soufan Center. It seems the stage is set “for a return to major combat”.

What did the commentators say?

In “a high-stakes gamble”, Iran is “playing what it believes is its key card”: announcing the closure of the strait “in an attempt to pressure Trump to bend to its will”, said the Financial Times. Its “belligerent” stance, and its attacks on ships and on US-aligned Gulf states, poses “the most severe test yet” of the fragile ceasefire. “It also lays bare” the “hawkish mindset that has taken hold in Tehran”.

The leadership that has emerged in Iran since Khamenei’s death “looks keener to project strength” and wear down Trump “through military pressure, rather than diplomacy”, said The Economist. There has been a noticeable “shift in the regime’s centre of gravity” towards the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which “has accelerated Iran’s transition from a theocracy to an ambitious nationalistic state dominated by military men”.

Their aim is “preventing the erosion of their perceived influence”, Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at UK think tank Chatham House, told the FT. “They feel they have to do this to survive.” They are wagering that “Trump is risk-averse” and that they can “absorb” some “low-level conflict. But this is a quagmire.”

The recent trading of strikes “raises questions for the future of the region”, said The Soufan Center. While Tehran seems “willing to suffer the consequences of escalation, neither they nor Trump appear to want to return” to all-out war. “Each side prefers a ‘no war, no peace’ status”, even while a return to negotiations looks “bleak”.

What next?

The conflict has “descended into a mutually unsatisfying stalemate”, with Washington “unable to topple the Islamic Republic” and Tehran “unable to force the US to vacate its backyard”, said Ali Vaez on Foreign Affairs. US-Iranian tensions are “worse than ever before” but, “paradoxically”, this may be “a moment of opportunity” for both countries “to repair their broken relationship”.

Now that it is “plainly apparent” that neither side can “deliver a knockout blow to the other” or sustain “unmanaged hostility”, there are “decision-makers” in each nation who “have started looking for ways to co-exist”.

President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy have never had what could feasibly be called a “warm” relationship, stretching back well into Trump’s first term. Given their frosty history, Trump’s enthusiasm during this week’s NATO summit for Ukraine’s recent wartime successes came as a shock to many. By announcing plans to loosen restrictions on American arms for Ukraine’s defense and hailing Kyiv’s wartime strides against Russia, has Trump come around to Zelenskyy as a peer among the world’s heads of state? Or will the infamously mercurial MAGA president revert to his previous hostility?

What did the commentators say?

Trump “heaped praise” on Zelenskyy and Ukraine during the NATO summit in Ankara, where he spoke in “unusually positive terms” about Kyiv’s strikes in deep Russian territory, said The Washington Post. By speaking in “admiring terms” and offering “dramatic new assistance” for Ukraine’s wartime efforts, Trump’s stance was a “dramatic departure from his tone during his first year in office.” Zelenskyy, meanwhile, spent his recent time with Trump showing “swagger and a hint of his prepresidential vocation as a popular Ukrainian comedian.” Trump and Zelenskyy “kindled a significant thaw in relations,” with the pair’s “bonhomie” signaling the “latest shift in a historically fraught relationship,” said The Hill.

Given that Trump has “zigged and zagged when it comes to Ukraine,” the president’s offer to grant Kyiv a Patriot missile manufacturing license is being “cheered” in Ukraine with a “heavy dose of caution,” said The New York Times. Similarly, Trump’s endorsement of Ukrainian deep drone strikes as an “escalation that could help end the war” marked his “strongest praise yet” for Zelenskyy’s wartime gains, and dealt a “significant blow to Russia’s efforts to keep Trump on its side in talks to end the war,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump “always wants to be on the winning side,” said Viktor Shlinchak, the head of the Institute of World Policy, to the Times. “Right now, it does not look like Ukraine is losing.”

Following Trump’s push to grant Kyiv a manufacturing license for Patriot missiles, Zelenskyy at “times looked like he almost couldn’t believe his luck,” said CNN. Not only have the pair shared a “rocky relationship,” but the “flare-up in the war in Iran appeared to have put Trump into a foul mood” ahead of the meeting. But in a “break from earlier encounters” that “ended in acrimony,” Trump praised Zelenskyy’s “willingness to reach a deal” to end the ongoing violence, said NPR. “We’ve developed a good relationship — it’s even hard to believe — from the Oval Office until now,” said Trump at the summit meeting. “This will be the beginning, maybe, just the beginning.”

What next?

European leaders have “embraced the new messaging,” said the Post. “It’s so important” that Trump is “now taking very seriously that Ukraine has a chance” while Russia is “doing weaker,” said Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, according to the outlet.

The unexpectedly friendly meeting between the two leaders “appeared to demonstrate the best-case scenario for Ukraine and its supporters among NATO members,” said The Hill. Many had worried that Trump’s “animosity toward the alliance” and “routine deference” to Russian President Vladimir Putin would “undermine support” for Kyiv and NATO.

Still, the language Trump used to promise Patriot manufacturing rights for Ukraine was “rather vague,” CNN said. The president “admitted that he had not yet discussed the issue” with arms manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which manufacture the missile batteries domestically. “We have Patriots, but we don’t have that many,” said Trump during his conversation with Zelenskyy. “We need them for ourselves, too.”

Even so, Zelenskyy was “emboldened by the good meeting” enough to joke that he couldn’t visit Moscow anytime soon because there are “too many Ukrainian drones there. It’s not safe,” said The Hill. Trump also appeared open to visiting Ukraine, but said he would rather the “war be over” before committing.

What happened

President Donald Trump Thursday pushed out the remaining three members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, firing the two Democratic commissioners while allowing the Republican member to resign. The fourth member, a Republican, quit in April to join the Heritage Foundation.

Who said what

The EAC, an independent agency created in 2002, is a “crucial guardrail for ensuring election security across the country,” The New York Times said. Trump’s ouster of its leadership is an “apparent move to assert control over voting ahead of the midterms,” Politico said, and “election officials across the country expressed various degrees of confusion and alarm.” Trump issued executive orders last year to require proof of citizenship on the EAC-maintained national voter registration form and to “block the EAC from distributing funds to states that did not adjust voter forms to have a citizenship check,” but were both “blocked in court.”

What next?

The Supreme Court last month gave Trump “precedence” to “remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring ​every legal vote is counted,” a White House official said Thursday. Without at least three Senate-confirmed “bipartisan replacements,” NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice said, the EAC “cannot lawfully make any decisions that affect how Americans vote.”

What happened

A federal judge in Manhattan Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll the $5 million a jury awarded her in 2023 for sexual abuse and defamation. Trump “has been stalling this case for years,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in Thursday’s ruling, and after the Supreme Court last week denied his appeal of the verdict, “it is time ⁠for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment.”

Who said what

Trump’s legal team had asked Kaplan to pause releasing the $5.8 million held in escrow — Trump’s deposit plus interest — until the Supreme Court decided whether to reconsider his appeal. Kaplan denied the request. In the “highly unlikely ​event” the justices accepted his petition and overturned the verdict, he wrote, Trump could sue to “recover any funds erroneously disbursed.” The “American People” stand with Trump and “demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” Trump’s legal team said in a statement.

What next?

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday night rejected an emergency motion by Trump to prevent the release of the money. “Carroll has waited more than three years for a jury’s verdict to be paid,” her lawyers wrote in an appellate filing. “She should not have to wait any longer.”

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday ended the two-day NATO summit in Turkey with warm words for U.S. allies, a promise to let Ukraine produce Patriot air-defense missiles and renewed fighting with Iran. After declaring the ceasefire “over,” Trump ordered a second night of strikes on Iran, which again fired at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Iran’s leaders are “scum” and “sick people,” Trump told reporters. If Iran keeps bombing ships in the Strait of Hormuz, he said on social media, the “retribution” will “get much worse!”

Who said what

Trump began the NATO summit “publicly bashing the alliance and reciting a list of grievances,” Politico said, but “behind closed doors” he “was far more positive” with fellow leaders. “There was a lot of love in that room,” Trump told reporters. “A lot of unity.” The Ankara summit “amounted to a master class in how to manage a mercurial president and minimize damage,” CNN said. “It’s a lesson clearly not absorbed by, or of much interest to, Iran.”

What next?

The reignited battle over the Strait of Hormuz reflects a “divide among Iran’s leadership” between “hard-liners seeking lasting control of the waterway” and “pragmatists” seeking sanctions relief, The Associated Press said. It also leaves Trump back “mired in an unpopular war that he cannot seem to end,” The Washington Post said, “with midterm elections less than four months away.”

Democratic socialists are winning Democratic primaries and Republicans see an opportunity. GOP candidates are increasingly tagging their rivals as “communists,” an approach embraced by President Donald Trump. The United States “did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” Trump said during his Independence Day speech. Democrats say the attacks harken back to discredited “red-baiting” smears of earlier eras. Will the accusations help the GOP in this fall’s midterm elections?

What did the commentators say?

The attacks come as U.S. voters increasingly “take on a positive view of socialism,” said The Washington Post. The longstanding Republican accusation that Democrats are socialists is no longer an “attack that stings as much,” GOP strategist Alex Conant said to the outlet. That leaves conservatives trying a message they hope will work with voters “old enough to remember Soviet-era nuclear drills and spy dramas,” said Axios. Trump himself “came of age” during the Cold War, historian Beverly Gage said to the publication. Whether accusing opponents of being communists resonates with younger voters is an open question, however. “Is the United States actually still susceptible to that kind of political language?"

“It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump went full Joe McCarthy,” Heather Digby Parton said at Salon. Republicans have used “red scare” tactics for nearly a century, and McCarthy’s right-hand man was a lawyer named Roy Cohn who later mentored Trump. The challenge for Republicans is that the policies advocated by upstart Democrats are “standard issue Bernie Sanders-style progressivism” that is popular among young voters and “some of the more populist MAGA types.” That ideology “certainly isn’t communism.”

Despite “media dismissals,” it is actually true that the “majority of the Democratic Socialists of America’s leadership identifies with Marxist ideology,” said Stu Smith at City Journal. The DSA was “not always” aligned with communism, but the organization’s recent “leftward shift” has attracted “members with Communist political tendencies.” Trump is “correct” in linking communism to the DSA’s “toehold in the Democratic Party,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. But the president’s demand for partial government stakes in companies such as U.S. Steel, Nvidia and OpenAI reveals he has “more in common with Communists than his hostile rhetoric lets on.”

Communist accusations against Democrats are “laughably false,” Sara Pequeño said at USA Today. National Democrats “barely want” DSA members in the party. “Why on earth would they suddenly be welcoming Marxist theory with open arms?”

What next?

Polls show “most Americans disapprove” of Trump’s job performance but there are also “warning signs” for Democrats, said USA Today. A majority of battleground state voters say Democrats are “too far to the left,” a sign Republicans “could find fertile ground” by raising the specter of communism. Democrats could be hurt if the midterms become a “referendum on the craziest ideas” of democratic socialist candidates, Third Way’s Matt Bennett said to the outlet.

For the first time since consolidating power to rule the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas will disband its Government Emergency Committee that has coordinated day-to-day life across the territory, according to the Palestinian militant group. This clears a path for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), known as a technocratic committee, to assume control as part of President Donald Trump and his Board of Peace’s plan for the beleaguered region. But by playing coy about next steps, Hamas has given observers and critics plenty of reasons to be suspicious about this latest development.

‘Caretaker framework’

The governmental dissolution “marks a significant political shift” by Hamas, said Al Jazeera. But while the militant group has “repeatedly said it is prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance” of Gaza, the “question of its disarmament remains unresolved.”

The decision to dismantle the governing authority was made to “remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem to AFP, per Le Monde. Hamas seeks the “swift entry” of the technocratic committee and “affirms its readiness to hand over governmental responsibilities to the committee to ensure its success.” The committee, in turn, is “fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available,” said NCAG Chief Commissioner Ali Shaath on X.

For Hamas, the move is designed to transform the group’s “existing governing structure” into a “caretaker framework,” said The Times of Israel. Hamas officials claim that “technical and professional staff” will “remain in place” after the governmental dissolution to “maintain continuity in service to civilians in Gaza,” said The Jerusalem Post.

Unsurprisingly, Israel has rejected that characterization. The dissolution of a Hamas government wherein “all of the Hamas members stay in their positions” is a “spin that has no significance,” said one Israeli official to The Associated Press.

‘Actions, not promises’

Any assessment of Hamas’ plan will be “guided by actions, not promises, to meet the critical needs of the people of Gaza,” said the Trump-led Board of Peace on X. The “core principle” of eventually turning over full control of Gaza to the technocratic committee “remains one authority, one law and one weapon,” which in turn means “consolidation of all weapons under the control of the NCAG as provided for in the Comprehensive Gaza Peace Plan and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803.”

The change “does not concern its military wing,” about which mediators are “still negotiating,” said Haaretz. Israel, meanwhile, is “not allowing members of the technocratic committee, who are currently in Cairo, to enter the territory.” Israel has “ruled out allowing Hamas to rule” the embattled Gaza Strip following the yearslong war between the two groups, said Al Jazeera. Israel “also rejected a direct takeover” by the Palestinian Authority, which controls the occupied West Bank, “at this stage.”

What happened

President Donald Trump arrived in Turkey Tuesday for a two-day NATO summit, and “within hours of landing” he “revived a host of grievances” against America’s closest allies, Politico said. Trump criticized Europe for not helping with his Iran war and threatened to pull U.S. troops from NATO countries if he didn’t gain control of Greenland. His “sour mood” tempered hopes for a “low-key,” constructive summit focused on collective defense.

Who said what

Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark,” Trump said during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Being refused control of the semiautonomous island is “what hurt my relationship with NATO.” Denmark’s prime minister and other European leaders once more firmly rejected Trump’s demand, but he returned to the idea this morning. “Greenland is very important to the United States,” he said. “We need it for protection of the world.”

NATO “sought to demonstrate that its European members were heeding Trump’s ​calls to spend more on their own defense,” Reuters said. “Announcing billions in arms deals” was “an attempt to appease the mercurial U.S. leader,” The Associated Press said.

What next?

Trump “surprised NATO leaders” by launching airstrikes on Iran Tuesday night, soon after a dinner hosted by Erdogan, the AP said. This morning he told reporters that the ceasefire with Tehran was “over.” Talks can continue, he said, “but I think they’re wasting their time.”

What happened

Overturning a 91-year precedent, the Supreme Court last week handed President Trump sweeping authority to control previously independent agencies—all except the Federal Reserve. In Trump v. Slaughter, the six conservative justices ruled that Trump was empowered to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a federal trade commissioner, last year because her views didn’t align with the White House’s agenda. The decision guts the precedent set by the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision, which held that Congress could limit the president’s ability to remove certain federal agency officials without cause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that because the FTC “unquestionably exercises executive power,” it “must therefore be controlled by the chief executive.” In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling gave the president “power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.”

In a separate case, though, the court made the Federal Reserve exempt from that new presidential power. Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in Trump v. Cook to rule that Trump overreached when he tried to fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor, after accusing her of mortgage fraud. Roberts wrote that the Fed was different from other federal agencies because it was “uniquely structured” to maintain independence, and that the president must present legitimate cause before removing a Fed governor. Trump said he would begin that process “immediately” so he could proceed with ousting Cook. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, meanwhile, was skeptical of the Fed carve-out. “The court’s holding is in serious tension with Trump v. Slaughter,” she wrote in her dissent. “Might history sanction other exceptions too?”

What the columnists said

The Roberts court just took a “wrecking ball” to the separation of powers with Slaughter, said Alexis Romero in Slate. Now not just the FTC but dozens of other federal agencies designed by Congress to be insulated from partisan politics are “fully under Trump’s thumb.” You can bet a newly empowered Trump “will begin to make Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre look like a normal weekday.” He’s now free to retaliate against any agency leader who dares to investigate him for a violation of the law, refuses to attack his political rivals, or pushes back against attempts to manipulate elections. “This is the world the Supreme Court has created.”

The ruling “invites presidential abuse,” said Victoria Nourse in The Economist. Trump can now pressure leaders at the SEC or the National Labor Relations Board to ignore wrongdoing by his cronies. He can lean on the National Transportation Safety Board or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to waive safety requirements for his friends’ companies. At the Federal Election Commission, he could replace commissioners with “loyalists who deny that he lost the 2020 election.” He may not even need to fire people: Just “the threat may be enough.”

Yet it “may be premature” to declare the death of agencies’ independence, said Ilya Somin in Reason. That’s because Slaughter and Cook, as Barrett noted, appear completely incompatible. Sure, “central bank independence is a long-standing tradition,” but “the same is true of many other independent agencies.” More exceptions could follow. The two rulings are at odds because Slaughter “is good law and good policy,” said National Review in an editorial, and Cook is a mess. “If the president controls the executive branch, and doesn’t control the Fed, then what is the Fed?” It’s not a legislature and it’s not a court. “The Constitution doesn’t mention a fourth branch. But now we have one.”

It’s no surprise Roberts and Kavanaugh are willing to shield the Fed but not the other agencies, said Elie Mystal in The Nation. They “didn’t feel like crashing the global economy and tanking their 401(k)s.” Most federal agencies are there to protect the little guy the justices don’t care about: The FTC goes to bat for consumers, the NLRB for employees. The Fed, though, “protects the monetary policy that capitalists rely on to make their billions.”

The conservative justices are unruffled by this obvious double standard, said Zack Beauchamp in Vox. They consistently rule that their “own policy preferences are constitutionally mandated” while those they disagree with get extra scrutiny. The result is that the president has “an electoral dictatorship” in areas where the justices agree with him. Everywhere else, “the court sets policy.”

As Iran’s religious, political and military elite turned out to say farewell to the country’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one figure was conspicuously absent.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as the de facto head of the Islamic Republic, has not been seen in public since the joint US-Israeli air strikes that killed many of his close family members and decapitated the regime on the first day of the war.

Khamenei, who is said to have been seriously injured in the attack, is believed to be in hiding due to Israeli threats to his life, but his absence has “raised questions about who is really running the country, and allowed extraordinary open divisions to fester”, said Farnaz Fassihi in The New York Times.

What did the commentators say?

For 36 years, “the question of who ultimately ruled Iran had one answer”, said Joshua Keating for Vox. While the country has an elected president and legislature, “whenever the US confronted Iran, American policymakers knew it was Khamenei who would make the final decision.”

But now “they’re no longer so sure”. With the sheer number of senior figures who have been killed over the past four months, “there’s something of a power vacuum in Tehran right now”.

In the void left by the killing of a supreme leader “who exerted absolute power over all important decisions”, the conservatives have “split” and generals in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have “consolidated power, effectively running the country”, said Fassihi.

With the power of the new supreme leader greatly diminished, and various factions and facets of the state jockeying for influence, the question now is just who is actually in charge of the Iranian system.

“The system is in control of the system,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East program at Chatham House, told Vox. “I know we all want to think that there’s one individual that has power or authority. There’s no one commander in chief. It is a system that is commanding collectively for the time being.”

If the week-long funeral for Ali Khamenei represents a “calculated projection of strength by a regime determined to demonstrate continuity and resilience despite an extraordinary crisis”, it has done little to quell questions “over the country’s political succession”, said France24.

What next?

Amid the jostling for power, Khamenei’s funeral is undoubtedly a “big moment”, said BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams: a “grand reminder that the old guard has given way to the new. And with the new faces comes a new approach with its own implications.”

The new leadership is not made up of ageing ideologues who emerged in opposition to the Shah and subsequently the US, “but of generally post-revolutionary leaders ruthlessly focussed on preserving the state and willing to act more decisively than their predecessors”, said Vali Nasr, professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“A whole new generation has taken over. They have a very clear agenda. They managed the war and now they’re going to manage the peace as well.”

Historically unpopular and facing potentially catastrophic midterm elections in November, President Donald Trump has thrown an electoral hand grenade into the campaign calendar. “For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a midterm convention” in Dallas, Texas, Sept. 9-10 — a “rally like none other,” said Trump on Truth Social last week. And as the president tries to consolidate GOP strength ahead of a make-or-break election, Democrats see signs of desperation and political opportunities.

What did the commentators say?

Party officials have been “planning the logistics of the event for months,” after Trump became “enamored with the idea of a splashy midterm convention last year,” said The New York Times. Given that the party in power has “historically lost ground in midterm elections, Republicans see a convention so close to election day as “offering the party a large platform to make the case to stay in power.” Democrats had “briefly considered” holding their own midterm convention, but ultimately “decided against such a pricey event.”

The “Trumpapalooza” gathering will offer Republicans a “chance to highlight all the wonderful things this president has done,” said Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters to Fox News. GOP officials also hope the convention will “energize MAGA voters who don’t always vote when Trump isn’t on the ballot,” said the outlet. Despite being “designed to showcase Republican achievements,” however, the planned convention is “likely to have detractors, even among party officials,” said Al Jazeera. Critics fear the event could “draw resources away from key battlegrounds in the final stretch of the race,” and will “shine a spotlight on Trump himself at a moment when his poll numbers are drooping.”

Although the convention “comes at a politically vulnerable time” for Republicans, its “location in Texas is also significant,” said Time. “No further proof is needed” that the GOP is “freaking the f*** out” over their midterms standing, said Texas State Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez (D) on X. While Texas has “not elected a Democrat statewide in decades,” Democratic State Rep. James Talarico is currently neck and neck with Attorney General Ken Paxton for outgoing Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) U.S. Senate seat, and has become “one of his party’s top fundraisers,” said the Times.

Whether GOP officials “appreciate it or not,” there are “two main problems they should probably keep in mind,” said MS NOW. First, “holding a national convention is extremely expensive.” Second, and “just as important,” is the fact that the goal of a national convention is “nationalizing an election cycle.” Given how unpopular Trump is, the GOP should be “going out of its way to localize the midterms,” rather than the opposite.

What next?

It is likely that “many Democratic officials are looking forward” to Trump’s event, said MS NOW. The convention will “give the minority party an opportunity to do what it wants to do anyway: connect Republican candidates and officeholders to Trump.”

While much of the event’s programming remains under wraps, officials have begun to “fill in some of the details,” said The Dallas Morning News. The convention will “blend elements of a traditional political convention” with a “Trump-centered program designed to energize Republican voters.” The event will also “include delegates from across the country,” but it will feature “no official party business.” Organizers have also not clarified “whether members of the public will be able to attend” or how ticketing might work.

Trump’s scheduled convention will also be “clashing with a pair of NFL matchups that will kick off the 2026 season,” forcing both events to “potentially compete for viewership,” said Forbes. In the past, NFL kickoff games have been rescheduled to avoid overlap with political conventions during presidential election years. It is “not immediately clear if the same will happen to this year’s season opener.”

What happened

FIFA Sunday lifted U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s one-game suspension from a red card he drew during last week’s 2-0 World Cup win over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The unusual decision means that Balogun, the top U.S. scorer in this tournament, can play in today’s knockout round-of-16 match against Belgium. Shortly after FIFA announced its decision, news organizations reported that President Donald Trump had called FIFA President Gianni Infantino following the match and asked him to review Balogun’s suspension. “Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” Trump said on social media Sunday.

Who said what

Balogun’s red card was one of the World Cup’s “most controversial and consequential decisions,” The Associated Press said. But FIFA’s “extraordinary” decision to reverse it was the “first time since 1962 that a red card during a World Cup did not result in a suspension.” It is “highly unusual for a head of state to intervene in a soccer disciplinary matter with FIFA’s top official,” The Washington Post said. FIFA “insists that the decision was an independent one made by its 18-person disciplinary committee,” Politico said, though it didn’t say if there was a vote.

What next?

Belgium’s soccer federation said it was “astonished” by FIFA’s apparent violation of its own rules and was “investigating all potential options” to “protect the fundamental principles of fair play in our sport.”

What happened

President Donald Trump’s Domestic Policy Council late Saturday issued a report criticizing the leadership of the Smithsonian Institution, and especially the National Museum of American History, for allegedly painting an insufficiently positive and “patriotic” view of the U.S. and its founding.

The Smithsonian leaders “cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying and worthy of our great republic,” the report said.

Who said what

The Smithsonian “has long been regarded as independent of the executive branch,” The New York Times said, but Trump has tried to exert control over the world’s largest museum institution for more than a year. The report “comes in the midst of Trump’s aggressive campaign to overhaul some of Washington’s most sacred cultural and historic institutions,” The Associated Press said, and it indicates he “may be preparing to install his own team.”

Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian’s first Black leader, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday he was motivated by the “notion of being a more perfect union, not the perfect union,” and by the “responsibility to continue to make those aspirations available, accessible, meaningful to a whole range of people.”

What next?

“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” a Smithsonian spokesperson said in a statement.

What happened

Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral procession began advancing through the streets of Tehran this morning after Sunday’s prayers at the capital’s sprawling Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla complex. Three of Khamenei’s sons appeared publicly Sunday for the first time since their father and other family members were killed in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes of the Iran war, but Mojtaba Khamenei, the son who succeeded him as supreme leader, has still not made any public appearances.

Who said what

The funeral procession route was “packed to capacity” with black-clad mourners “hoping to gain a glimpse of the passing cortège,” CNN said. Some mourners said they were disappointed at the absence of Mojtaba Khamenei, whose face was reportedly “disfigured” and “one or ​both legs” significantly injured in U.S.-Israeli strikes, Reuters said. He is believed to be in hiding “due to the dangers of Israeli threats to his life,” Al Jazeera said.

The “increasingly” common “threats from mourners to avenge Khamenei’s death” included chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and signs calling for the “killing of both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” The Associated Press said. As the poet Mohammad Rasouli asked why “the biggest bastard in the world” was “still alive” to cheering mourners at the Mosalla complex, Trump was boasting he “wiped out” Iran’s military during “a speech at the same time across the world” to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

What next?

After a 12-hour procession through Tehran, Khamenei’s body will be transported to Qom, then to important Shiite shrines in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, and finally to Thursday’s burial in his hometown of Mashhad.

All eyes will be on Donald Trump as Nato leaders gather in Ankara this week following his administration's warning that allies must step up defence spending “immediately” or face consequences.

Last year’s summit was hailed as a “breakthrough” after members committed to spending 5% of GDP on defence – 3.5% on core requirements and 1.5% on broader security needs – by 2035, said Elsa Ohlen on CNBC.

This year’s gathering is “expected to move the debate from pledges to implementation” on “questions about procurement, industrial capacity, support for Ukraine and the political architecture of what the Trump administration has called ‘Nato 3.0’”.

“This is really the Nato summit where Nato goes from burden sharing to burden shifting,” Ulrike Franke, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the channel.

What did the commentators say?

Nato is “both stronger than it was 18 months ago, when Trump returned as US president, and a lot weaker”, said the Financial Times. It is in “better shape” largely thanks to pressure from Trump to get non-US members to spend more “investing in readiness and rearmament”, and as Europeans take on “more command roles even as the US military remains professional and fully engaged”.

At the same time, the alliance is “much weaker because confidence that the Trump administration would stand by its allies if they are attacked has cratered”. The US, under the unpredictable president, also seems “to lack the discipline to come up with a burden-shifting plan”.

That is why this week’s summit in Turkey has been described as “one of the most consequential” in years, said Radio Free Europe’s Washington correspondent Alex Raufoglu. As the US seeks a “more balanced transatlantic partnership”, it is looking for clear signs that “this relationship is becoming more equal – not only financially, but strategically”.

The “expected focus is on industrial outputs”, but the allied “will to fight back to back is no less important than material defence readiness”, said Visegrad Insight editor Wojciech Przybylski. “Russia knows it better than most” and so this week’s summit will “test the political resolve – whether Western leaders can still project unified purpose and unambiguous strategic intent”.

What next?

Some, such as Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries, “are doing more than others”, Matt Whitaker, the US ambassador to Nato, said ahead of the summit. “But many others are lagging behind” their pledge to up defence spending by 2035.

The Telegraph reported that Trump is “thought to be planning to reward or punish countries based on their defence spending”. Those with higher spending are likely to be moved “up the queue for the purchase of US weapons and mean they are invited for more face-to-face meetings with the president”.

This “threatens to put the US president on a collision course with Britain”, after Keir Starmer failed to secure a fully funded defence investment plan ahead of the start of the summit on Tuesday.

The UK is now ranked 12th among Nato members in terms of spending per GDP, having been third a decade ago. The outgoing PM is expected to “face down a rebuke” from Trump “in one of his final acts in office this week”, said The Times.

‘The vultures arrived before the rescue teams’

Gisela Salim-Peyer at The Atlantic

Following two earthquakes, Venezuela’s “man-made disasters didn’t take long to exacerbate the natural one,” says Gisela Salim-Peyer. For “28 years and counting, Venezuela’s rulers have stolen or squandered much of the oil revenue of the most oil-rich country in the world” as “oligarchs pocketed the petrodollars.” The “humanitarian consequences of this wastefulness were well documented,” but “now they have acquired a fresh urgency.” In the “crucial first 24 hours following the quakes, the government response was practically nonexistent.”

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‘250 years later, we must recommit to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence’

Willie Wilson at the Chicago Tribune

As Americans “celebrate 250 years of representative democracy, independence and freedom, consider recommitting to the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence,” says Willie Wilson. The declaration was “written by imperfect men. However, the message of freedom has endured and inspired others around the world.” Within, there are “suggestions to strengthen our democracy.” Congress “should amend the Constitution to establish for all Americans an affirmative right to vote,” and “every citizen should read the Declaration of Independence.”

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‘Iran has zero chance of honoring the MOU’

Mike Evans at The Jerusalem Post

There are “people in Washington who still believe the Iranian regime can be persuaded to change through diplomacy,” says Mike Evans. They “believe another agreement,” another version of the Memorandum of Understanding or “another round of negotiations will somehow convince the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions.” But Iran has “repeatedly shown that it views negotiations as a strategic tool.” Every “concession allows Tehran to strengthen its military, rebuild its economy and continue pursuing the very objectives it promised to abandon.”

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‘How Trump plans to crush fast food workers’

Timothy Noah at The New Republic

Corporate America has “systematically shed low-wage workers, either by offshoring them, contracting out their work or designating them as independent contractors,” says Timothy Noah. The “consumer welfare standard is on its way out, but that transition is not happening quickly.” Today “fast food employees are mostly grown-ups, often with families, and their best recourse, if they can’t make ends meet, is to go on welfare.” President Donald Trump’s “proposed joint-employer rule will impoverish these workers even more.”

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‘Most people are thinking about aging all wrong’

Leana S. Wen at The Washington Post

Many people “believe that aging is synonymous with steadily losing cognitive and physical abilities,” but a recent study “offers a far more optimistic picture: Nearly half of older adults actually improve in later life,” says Leana S. Wen. A “strong predictor of such improvement is something everyone has control over: their own beliefs about aging.” Someone who “believes their best years are still ahead of them is more likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors.”

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‘Europe’s big bewildering AC debate’

Chas Danner at Intelligencer

Europe’s heat wave is “finally ending after the extreme weather broke temperature records and upended daily life for nearly two weeks across the continent,” says Chas Danner. While “you’d think Europe’s governments and people would be rushing to fully integrate ACs into their cooling arsenal, that’s no simple task for a variety of reasons.” The “latest heat wave has fueled a raging political debate, not to mention a feeding frenzy by bewildered critics here in the U.S.”

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‘India should stop panicking about Trump’

C. Raja Mohan at Foreign Policy

India’s “post-Cold War ties with the United States have been pronounced to be in crisis with remarkable regularity,” says C. Raja Mohan. Donald Trump has “created a sense in New Delhi that the relationship is now at a crossroads.” The “mood is in stark contrast to 2024, when Indian public opinion was broadly rooting for Trump’s return.” But even as “India’s irritation with Trump has grown, it has gone out of its way to deepen engagement with the U.S. government.”

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‘Undoing Stalin’s crime: Romania and Moldova should reunite’

John Gustavsson at the National Review

Romania has “adopted a bill authorizing its government to begin talks with neighboring Moldova with the aim of unifying the two countries,” and “while unification would of course require consent from both countries, there are good reasons for the West to support such a move,” says John Gustavsson. “Like Romania already is, unification would embed Moldova in the West.” While Moldova “has made progress in recent years, it is a small, poor country incessantly targeted by Russian information warfare.”

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What happened

President Donald Trump took in at least $2.2 billion in revenue last year, including $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency ventures, according to a mandatory annual filing released Tuesday.

Trump’s “traditional businesses — in particular golf courses and resorts — continued to bring in millions,” Reuters said, but he “now derives most of his income from ​digital assets that have benefited from his policies.” Trump’s reported 2024 income was $622 million.

Who said what

Trump’s new disclosure lists $635 million in royalties from $TRUMP memecoins and $799 million from token sales and other income from World Liberty Financial. “Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales,” The Associated Press said. A Reuters analysis last month found that Trump’s family crypto ventures raked in at least $2.3 billion in profits during his second term, while their investors lost $2.3 billion.

Trump’s open pursuit of profit in office is “completely unprecedented,” presidential wealth historian Megan Gorman told The New York Times. It’s a “betrayal of the American social contract: that those who lead the country prioritize country over self.” Trump has never “engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

What next?

Presidents are exempt from the conflict-of-interest laws governing most federal workers, former federal ethics office chief Dan Fox told Reuters. But Trump “makes the case better than anyone that it’s time for additional ethics reforms.”

What happened

The Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, upholding the long-established principle that most people born on U.S. soil are automatically citizens. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the five-justice majority but said he would have struck down Trump’s order as a narrower legislative violation. Justice Samuel Alito said, in one of three dissents, that the ruling was a “serious mistake” in “one of the most important decisions in the history of the court.”

Who said what

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, handed Trump a “huge loss on one of his top priorities” on the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, CNN said. Trump’s executive order “would have applied to people who are legally in the United States” and affected “more than one-quarter of a million babies,” The Associated Press said. But it “never went into effect,” The New York Times said, “and there were few signs the administration had been preparing the dramatic overhaul of the citizenship system” that would have been needed.

Trump might have fared better if he had “tried to end birthright citizenship for transients alone,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. But “he took the advice of those who recommended an expansive constitutional challenge because he thought the issue was a political winner, and his defeat is all the greater for it.”

What next?

Trump claimed on Truth Social that Congress could “easily” enact his birthright ban without a “long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment.” That “appeared at odds with the court’s ruling,” the Times said. But “any measure, whether proposed as a bill or a constitutional amendment, would face long-shot odds.”

It could be the worst case yet in President Trump’s abuse of prosecutorial power to “bully his political rivals,” said Kim Wehle in The Bulwark. California Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed recently that he and his wife are being investigated by the Department of Justice. The investigations into a Trump foil and possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate reveal “how bad things have gotten”—but Newsom is showing Americans “how to resist” Trump’s assault on the rule of law. He put the DOJ “on the defensive” by announcing its investigations himself and has filed a Freedom of Information request for documents related to two ongoing probes. “He’s coming after me because I am considering running for president,” Newsom said, adding that he is proud to join Trump’s “hit list.”

The governor’s claim of political persecution shows “savvy political skill,” but it may be misleading, said Nicole Russell in USA Today. According to the Los Angeles Times, federal prosecutors in California launched two investigations a year ago based on whistleblower tips. One investigation focused on Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, who recently pleaded guilty to fraud and false statements to the FBI; that case may now be expanded beyond her. The other probe apparently is focused on Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s finances and taxes. Her nonprofits have drawn public criticism for accepting donations from corporations that lobby her husband for favorable policies, and the governor has solicited $4.3 million in donations for a nonprofit she co-founded. But “martyrdom at the hands of a Republican plays well” in a Democratic presidential primary. In fact, Newsom “seemed almost happy to drop the news,” said Kimberley A. Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. California permits elected officials to solicit donations for nonprofits, called behested payments, and Newsom has approached many people and companies—some with business before the state—on his wife’s behalf. “Ethically ugly isn’t the same as illegal,” but “the Newsoms shouldn’t be allowed to pretend that there’s nothing to see here.”

California’s First Couple is now bracing for months of intense scrutiny, said Melanie Mason and Jeremy B. White in Politico. Law enforcement is questioning their acquaintances, and Siebel Newsom has become “a recurring target in the conservative social media ecosystem,” which villainizes her as a woke elitist. Fairly or not, the DOJ’s investigations have “opened a new front in the governor’s battle with the White House.”

What festivities are planned?

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is being celebrated with a series of MAGA-fied gatherings, concerts, and competitions. Many of them have an overtly partisan component. The first event was a night of Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts staged on the White House lawn specifically to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday. The next, the “Great American State Fair,” which runs on the National Mall for two weeks, was supposed to include stands from every U.S. state and territory. But at least seven states (six of them with Democratic governors) pulled out, citing costs and politics, after it became clear that the event would feature Republican themes like Make America Healthy Again Monday and the participation of conservative groups such as Moms for America. This event is “a more partisan affair than originally presented,” said Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek through a spokesman. The pro-Trump vibe also caused the cancellation of a planned June 25 kickoff concert, after country singer Martina McBride, rapper Young MC, and bands including Morris Day and the Time and the Commodores all bowed out for political reasons. Trump said he would open the State Fair with one of his political rallies instead, adding that he’d make July 4 “the most spectacular Trump rally of them all.”

Was this the original plan?

No. In 2016, Congress authorized a bipartisan nonprofit known as America250 to organize America’s milestone birthday. Inspired by the 1976 bicentennial—a widely praised extravaganza featuring 12 weeks of festivals on the Mall, events in every state, and the opening of the Air and Space Museum—the group said then it hoped to “educate, engage, and unite” Americans with programs across the country that would present and celebrate our history. So far, it has organized events such as a July 4 benefit concert in Los Angeles featuring Smashing Pumpkins and Queen Latifah; a succession of ball drops in New York City’s Times Square for each U.S. time zone on July 3; and the burying in Philadelphia of a huge time capsule to be opened in 2276. But it’s not very well funded. For the bicentennial, Congress had spent the equivalent of $900 million in today’s dollars. For this celebration, it has given less: some $80 million total between 2019 and 2025. While another $150 million was allocated in last year’s giant budget bill to top up the funds, the bulk of that money doesn’t go to America250 but to a rival group, Freedom 250.

What is Freedom 250?

It’s the Trump-chaired White House task force behind the UFC fight and the fair. Created by one of Trump’s early executive orders specifically to take the place of the bipartisan America250, Freedom 250 consists entirely of Republicans, nearly all white men. Vice President JD Vance serves as vice chair, and most Cabinet members are on the task force. Over a quarter of the partners listed on Freedom 250’s website are Christian groups or have Christian affiliations, although it also has connections with firms such as John Deere and Northrop Grumman. Freedom 250 says its mission includes inviting Americans “to pray for our country and our people and rededicate ourselves as One Nation Under God.” Both groups are running events.

How do the two groups differ?

Democrats call Freedom 250 a “Trump vanity” project, saying it promotes a revisionist, overly sanitized version of American history. Freedom 250 materials for a student art contest, for instance, describe Martin Luther King Jr. as having a “can-do” attitude but don’t mention that he fought segregation. But the Trump administration said it had to create its own task force because America250 placed too much emphasis on the darker aspects of American history, like slavery and discrimination. Chris LaCivita, a former Trump campaign manager, even accused the commission of wanting “to apologize” for the past 250 years. Meanwhile, the two sides are now squabbling over funding. America250 was supposed to get $50 million of the celebration money Congress allocated last year. As of June, though, the Interior Department had transferred only half of that.

Why the holdup? 

The administration says America250 has overspent “on frivolous, poorly attended events.” It points to the America’s Field Trip initiative, an essay contest whose winners get trips to historic sites, which is costing an estimated $10.4 million. Yet the White House has also raised eyebrows with its spending. The Interior Department has splashed out $98 million to spruce up Washington, D.C., for the celebrations, gilding horse statues and repainting the Reflecting Pool. The huge triumphal arch that Trump wants to build will cost another $100 million, at least. Plus, there are allegations of corruption: Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) launched a probe into whether the White House was running a “pay-to-play” scheme by giving wealthy Freedom 250 donors access to Trump.

Are Americans excited to turn 250?

Some are. Major concerts, festivals, and parades are expected to draw big crowds in Boston; New York; Philadelphia; Richmond, Va.; and Charleston, S.C. But Gallup found that while 84% of Americans over 65 plan to celebrate, the number drops to 66% for those ages 40 to 64, and just 54% for those 18 to 39. An NBC News poll found the number of respondents who were “extremely” proud to be an American is at a record low of 33%, and 38% told Reuters/ Ipsos they don’t believe the U.S. will be around for its 500th birthday. Some historians blame the apathy on the president. “The carnival atmosphere of cage fights on the White House lawn and a concert that everyone seems to be backing out of tells you all you need to know,” says historian James Robenalt. “There is no serious look at the nation or its complicated history.”

What happened

A pair of landmark Supreme Court decisions Monday gave presidents broad authority to fire the heads of previously independent federal agencies while appearing to carve out an exception for the Federal Reserve. Both rulings were written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

In the “more significant decision,” CNN said, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority allowed President Donald Trump to fire Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Kelly Slaughter at will “despite a federal law that requires presidents to show cause — such as malfeasance.” In the other, a 5-4 court said Trump can’t fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, for now.

Who said what

Monday’s rulings “took a sledgehammer to much of the federal government’s regulatory structure,” Nina Totenberg said at NPR, with the court’s conservatives “striking down almost all the limits that Congress — and the courts — had previously established to protect the independence” of regulatory agencies. Slaughter said the decision allowed Trump to “fire watchdogs who won’t put politics over principle” and “replace them with lap dogs.”

Cook celebrated her narrow victory as a win for the “American people, whose economic well-being depends on a central bank that answers to its mission, not political intimidation.” But the ruling gave Trump “an opening to keep fighting,” and he signaled he would, The New York Times said. The decision was “procedural,” Trump said, and he would “take appropriate action immediately.”

What next?

The court’s massive “expansion of presidential power” could “open the door to allowing presidents to fire at will not just agency leaders, but potentially lower-level government experts who have been protected by the Civil Service Reform Act since 1883,” Totenberg said.

‘We're eating too much sugar. There are ways to change that.’

Priya Fielding-Singh at USA Today

Added sugar “isn't just in candy and soda,” says Priya Fielding-Singh. It is “pervasive, hiding in everyday staples families depend on — from bread and yogurt to tomato sauce.” The government “should set stricter standards around added sugar in the places where children learn and play, from childcare and schools to aftercare programs.” The USDA “should further reduce how much added sugar is allowed, while investing in kitchen infrastructure so schools can prepare more food on site.”

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‘Once, cyber attacks required great skill. AI is changing that.’

Bruce Schneier at The Guardian

“Cyber attacks — both large and small — have been a significant issue since long before the current crop of generative AI models,” says Bruce Schneier. What has been “changing over the decades, and what AI is changing even faster, is the gap between skill and ability.” These “models can, with little detailed direction, autonomously hack into networks, steal data, deploy ransomware and destroy systems.” To the “extent there is a solution, it’s going to involve harnessing AI for the defense.”

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‘What's really driving Latin America’s rightward elections’

Orlando J. Pérez at The Dallas Morning News

Latin American voters are “not embracing a coherent right-wing program any more than voters in 2018 and 2019 embraced a coherent left-wing one,” says Orlando J. Pérez. They are “doing what Latin American electorates have done for decades: punishing whoever holds office when crime rises and the economy stalls, and backing whoever promises to fix both.” Latin Americans are “exhausted with their governments and quick to replace them.” When “citizens feel unsafe, they back almost anyone who promises order.”

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‘The threat of force was a far more effective deterrent than Trump’s show of force in Iran’

Gilles Paris at Le Monde

Donald Trump “pledged to deliver results that would last for at least the next half-century, but the outcome was disappointing,” says Gilles Paris. The Iran memorandum’s “positions are especially difficult to hold today, notably the belief that Washington’s ‘trustworthiness’ will ‘continue to make us the global partner of first choice.’” The “war, which caught U.S. allies off guard and resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a systemic global crisis, demonstrated the exact opposite.”

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Iran has become a “lose-lose issue” for Donald Trump, which is alienating his entire political base, said Zeeshan Aleem on MS Now. When he attacked Iran, he infuriated the isolationist wing of his coalition, who believed his promise that he’d start “no new wars”. Now, his scramble to end the conflict “is alienating the hawkish sector of his party”, who believe it amounts to a humiliating surrender.

One Republican senator described the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Trump last week as “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades”. Texas senator Ted Cruz said Trump must be getting “very poor advice”. Critics are particularly outraged by the potential creation of a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran. Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen called the provision a “disaster”, likening it to offering the “Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany while the Nazis were still in power”.

Vance under fire

Furious as they are, many Republican hawks are still reluctant to criticise Trump directly, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. So they’re turning their fire instead on the vice-president, J.D. Vance. “Trump effectively won the war and at the 11th hour Vance is negotiating his way to a loss,” raged one unnamed congressman to a Washington correspondent.

The president has done nothing to discourage such talk. “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit,” he said, half-jokingly, of the peace deal. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming J.D.” The irony, said Jim Geraghty in The Washington Post, is that Vance opposed starting this war. Now it has fallen to him to sell the peace deal and serve as the fall guy when it goes sour. “You almost have to feel sorry for Vance. Almost.”

Face of peace

“Playing the part of Trump’s surrender monkey” will hurt Vance’s image in the short term, said Jonathan V. Last on The Bulwark, but few Republican voters are likely to remember any of this stuff in two years’ time if petrol prices are back to normal and Iran hasn’t tested a nuclear device. Vance will just be the guy who helped bring an unpopular war to an end.

He has certainly been happy to serve as the face of this peace agreement, said Adam Cancryn on CNN. He asked to play a leading role in the talks, rather than being pushed into it. Vance may get the blame if the deal blows up, but he has no doubt concluded that if the two sides return to an intractable conflict, his hopes of becoming president are probably scuppered in any case.

Reports of President Donald Trump’s total capture of the Republican Party may be premature. Faced with plummeting popularity and whack-a-mole crises, the president has clashed with some of the most powerful members of his own coalition: Senate Republicans.

Whether this conservative revolt becomes a logjam for the White House remains to be seen. As Republicans face midterm headwinds to keep their congressional majorities, is the nascent push for senatorial independence for real, or will Republicans once more adopt the MAGA party line?

‘Relationship appears to be fraying’

Trump has “enjoyed unbending loyalty” from GOP lawmakers for years, said NPR. But the “strength of that relationship appears to be fraying,” particularly as some “departing members feel more uninhibited to push back” and others begin to imagine a post-Trump Washington.

Senators whom Trump had “written off, alienated or even helped defeat” are now opting to support “Senate traditions over his political demands,” said Axios. And the president’s decision this week to cancel the planned signing of bipartisan housing legislation “further inflamed weeks of tumult” that have marked an “increasingly bitter relationship between” him and high-profile Republican senators, said The New York Times. While “lawmakers from both parties were shocked by the president’s decision,” many of them saw Trump’s canceled signing as an effort to “undermine the efforts of his own party to protect its congressional majorities” before the midterms.

Trump’s push for harsh voting restrictions, which he demanded as a prerequisite before signing the housing bill, is “colliding with a newly defiant Republican Senate” and sets up a “multifront battle” ahead of the midterms, said The Wall Street Journal. GOP lawmakers “have been deferential to the president to a point,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R - Texas), to the outlet. But that deference “doesn’t seem to have done any good.” Simply having endorsed Trump’s point of view in the past “doesn’t mean he’s going to support you,” added Cornyn, whose own reelection bid was scuttled by a Trump-backed challenger.

During a closed-door lunch on Wednesday, which Republican senators hoped would “clear the air” between them and Trump, the president instead “vented his frustrations with the senators for more than an hour, leaving them no closer to detente,” said Politico. Trump “said something negative about me,” in an attempt to “bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know,” said outgoing Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy to the outlet, after reports of an intense argument between him and the president during the meeting. “I’m not going to be bullied.”

Sacrificing principles at the ‘altar of Trump’

Senate Republicans that same day “proved yet again that their spines are made of pudding,” said The New Republic, after both Cassidy and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul bowed to White House pressure and flipped previous votes to kill a resolution limiting Trump’s Iran war powers. The waffling shows conservative lawmakers who “claim to have principles” will “gladly sacrifice them at the altar of Trump.”

It is unclear whether the vote will be “enough to appease Trump,” said The Associated Press. But blocking efforts to restrict the president’s war powers “was a clear signal” to Trump from senators who “still want to placate him.”

What happened

The Supreme Court, in a pair of 6-3 decisions written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump has judicially unreviewable power to end temporary humanitarian protections for more than a million legal immigrants and can bar migrants from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico to request asylum. “Taken together,” the “two rulings expand Trump’s authority to implement his crackdown on immigration,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Who said what

The first decision cleared the way for Trump to end Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, many of whom “have lived and worked in the United States for decades and have American children,” The Associated Press said. The ruling is “expected to reverberate beyond those two communities, affecting approximately 1.3 million immigrants from 17 countries” who also hold TPS status, The Washington Post said.

Alito said the relevant 1990 law barred the courts from reviewing an administration’s decisions to revoke TPS, and he dismissed arguments that Trump’s many racially derogatory statements illegally tainted the decision. “Notably, Alito did not say what Trump’s statements were,” CNN said, an “omission liberal Justice Elena Kagan was quick to point out in her dissent.” Trump’s comments, including that Haitians eat dogs and cats, come from a “shithole” country and “probably have AIDS,” are “so repellent and racially inflected,” she wrote, “that the majority declines to put them in print.”

What next?

The justices have “one other signature Trump policy on immigration” to rule on this term, the Journal said: his “bid to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.” That’s likely to come down next week.

With the White House in murky waters due to ongoing changes to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that have caused unmitigated algae growth and peeling paint, many liberals claim President Donald Trump’s obsession with the pool encapsulates the mayhem of his administration. Many conservatives, conversely, say liberals are obsessed with the minute details of the presidential pond.

‘Another story typical of the Trump era’

The images of “workers vacuuming algae out of the pool, oily green slime, a dead duckling floating in the muck — these visuals can capture the public imagination, even among Americans largely fed up with and tuned out of politics,” Michelle Cottle said at The New York Times. Genuine policy decisions like the Iran war “upend more lives, but those policy failures take a lot of intellectual and emotional bandwidth to process.” But someone “wasting a pile of money on a shoddy remodel? Everyone gets how pathetic and hilarious that is.”

When the renovations began, they “resembled a common Trump narrative: Hubris and corruption combining to leave things worse than when he started,” and the “symbolism of Trump creating a real-life swamp was almost too perfect,” said James Downie at MS NOW. The situation has in time become “another story typical of the Trump era: the abuse of state prosecutorial power,” a reference to several people who have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the pool (Trump has not provided evidence for these allegations).

Trump has “fully embraced the dubious proposition that left-wing vandalism is at fault” for the pool’s problems, said Dion Lefler at The Wichita Eagle. To “say that Trump’s explanation is implausible is an insult to implausibility,” especially because the “only ones ever spotted pouring corrosive chemicals into the pool were federal workers” in an attempt to kill the algae. “In Donald Trump’s America, presidential incompetence is never an acceptable explanation for anything.”

‘Far more important stories unfolding’

Democrats “love to see a Trump administration fiasco coming,” said Nicole Russell at USA Today. The president’s “attempt to revive the faltering Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool” has “become the left’s newest obsession,” even when there are “far more important stories unfolding.” The Democratic focus on the Reflecting Pool is the “perfect metaphor for the way the left and much of the media have handled the Trump administration.”

The Reflecting Pool has been problematic long before Trump. It is “almost impossible to maintain the water level that is required to make the pool reflective,” Kym Hall, a former National Capital Area director for the National Park Service, told The New York Times last month, because it’s “like pouring water into a colander.” There are “many, many things to criticize about our 45th and 47th president, but it cannot be the case that literally everything the man does is wrong,” said the National Review editors.

The renovations are part of a “D.C. beautification project ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday,” and “statues and fountains across the federal city have been cleaned and restored,” Susan Ferrechio said at The Washington Times. Liberals, who have been “aided by dogged media coverage of the pool’s problems and cost, gleefully framed the peeling paint and algae blooms as a symbol of alleged Trump administration failures.” Trump, however, claims his “project was far less expensive, took less time and was far more successful than those of his Democratic predecessors.”

What happened

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that Michigan was not obligated to turn over confidential voter information to the Trump administration, siding with lower court judges in Michigan and eight other states where similar requests were blocked. In Boston, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper also permanently barred President Donald Trump from implementing most of an executive order seeking to overhaul how states run elections. The Constitution “does not grant the president any specific powers over elections,” she wrote in her ruling.

Who said what

Wednesday’s appellate decision was the “biggest setback yet” in the Trump administration’s effort to create its own nationwide voter roll, CNN said. That endeavor is part of a so-far unsuccessful “administration-wide push” by “Trump and his allies to find evidence of voter fraud,” The New York Times said. But they’ve run into “significant headwinds — and stern rebukes” — from “judges appointed by presidents of both parties,” including five Trump appointees.

What next?

A second election-related executive order Trump issued to create a national voter list and limit mail ballot “also faces multiple legal challenges,” The Associated Press said. Postmaster General David Steiner told a Senate panel on Wednesday that under a proposed Trump-ordered rule, the U.S. Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots to states that declined to turn over private voter data.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Wednesday abruptly scrapped a signing ceremony for a newly passed bipartisan housing bill, citing the Senate’s failure to clear the “desperately needed” SAVE America Act voting overhaul. His announcement on social media “caught lawmakers and some staff by surprise,” said The Washington Post. Republican leaders were “touting the housing bill at a news conference” and a flag-festooned stage was ready for him in the Capitol. Trump later fumed about the stalled voting bill during a contentious lunch with Senate Republicans.

Who said what

Trump was supposed to “spike the football,” but “instead, he fumbled,” Politico said. The signing ceremony “would have been a boon to Republicans desperate for campaign trail affordability wins,” and even “his own staff spent the morning taking a very public victory lap.” Trump is fixated on the voting bill, but rarely has one of his “late curveballs seemed as ill-advised,” said CNN.

It “makes no sense” that Trump would hold the housing bill “hostage” for legislation that “will never pass in this Congress,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters. But “there is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president’s doing right now, and it’s the Democrat Party.”

What next?

Trump “does not need to sign” the housing bill, which will “become law” 10 days after he officially receives it unless he issues a veto, Politico said. But such low-key enactment would “deny Republicans a chance to crow at a signing ceremony.”

There will soon be a changing of the guard in the United Kingdom, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced his resignation. But his likely replacement, Makerfield MP Andy Burnham, probably won’t have an easier time than Starmer did courting President Donald Trump. Burnham, a popular figure in the U.K.’s center-left Labour Party, has previously chided Trump and his administration. If he becomes prime minister, it could mark a turning point for American-British relations.

What did the commentators say?

When it comes to the White House’s view on Burnham, there has been no “immediate condemnation from the current administration,” said The Times. But “even if Burnham does benefit from a grace period with the president, his interventions on American politics are unlikely to endear him to Trump for long.” Similarly, the relationship between Starmer and Trump devolved soon after Starmer became prime minister.

Burnham has widely criticized Trump and right-wing U.S. politics. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, he “was scathing about British politicians who held their tongue to appease Trump,” said The Times. “Any U.K. politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now,” Burnham said on X at the time. To “combat the rise” of the U.K.’s far-right Reform U.K. party, a Burnham premiership “may be tempted to more openly criticize Trump” with the “knowledge that the U.S. president is reviled by much of the British electorate,” said The Times.

Burnham will also have to reckon with a U.S. president who has “undermined British confidence by deriding British military sacrifices in Afghanistan,” said the Washington Examiner. Trump’s leaking of the announcement that Starmer “would resign and his simultaneously classless (if broadly accurate) criticism of Starmer’s policies further degrades U.S.-U.K. trust.” Burnham, or whoever the next prime minister is, must “be cautious,” as the U.K. is “heavily reliant on the intelligence, military and economic benefits provided by its American alliance.”

Overall, the “mood swings of Mr. Trump may be less of an issue for Mr. Burnham” than they were for Starmer due to the “timeline in America,” said The Independent. By the time a Burnham premiership gets fully settled, the 2026 midterms may have passed, and he will be dealing with a White House “entering the traditional ‘lame duck’ stage where power quickly ebbs away, not least because he cannot run again.”

What next?

Burnham could potentially enter office as prime minister by mid-July, but if there’s a contest for the position, the “election would likely drag on into September,” said The Associated Press. Either way, the U.K.’s likely next prime minister has urged caution against his country moving to be like the United States. “Politics is getting more polarized. And the path we’re on, if we are not careful, is a path toward the politics of the United States of America,” Burnham said during an event in the final days of his parliamentary campaign.

Burnham has also expressed dissent about the similarities between Trump and former Prime Minister Liz Truss, as well as Trump’s 2024 election victory. “The instability that Liz Truss brought to Britain, I think Trump is bringing to the U.S. and the world,” he told The London Economic last year. “Open your eyes to what could be really challenging and difficult issues and things that could polarize people further.”

What began as a photo opportunity between two world leaders has spiraled into geopolitical acrimony. An escalating war of words between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over who asked whom to pose for a photograph at the recent G7 conference now threatens to impact material relations between the Trump administration and Italy’s right-wing government. As Trump rages on social media over the photo flap, Meloni returns to Italy with an eye toward next year’s national elections — and the benefits of being seen standing up to an increasingly unpopular American president.

‘Developing rift’ with origins in the Iran war

Meloni is “clearly irked” at Trump’s “suggestion that she ‘begged’ him for a photo” at the recent G7 summit, said NBC News. While the prime minister “didn’t respond publicly” to other Trump barbs this spring, the “most recent clash, by contrast, quickly escalated.”

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani “abruptly cancelled a planned trip” to the U.S. after calling Trump’s comments “serious and offensive” to the whole of Italy, said The Associated Press. “Italy and I never beg,” said Meloni in a video response posted to social media over the weekend.

The “continuing exchange” between the two leaders has “highlighted a developing rift between the two countries” stemming from Trump’s war on Iran, said the BBC. Trump and Meloni once enjoyed a “close political relationship,” with Meloni the “sole European leader” to have attended Trump’s second inauguration.

The binational relationship has “grown strained in recent months over the war in Iran,” said Axios, particularly after Italy “denied U.S. aircraft permission to land at its bases” in March. Trump’s relationship with Europe more broadly “had long been fraying” over the war with Iran, his trade policies and threats to annex Greenland, said the Los Angeles Times.

Still, while Trump took a “warmer tone toward other European leaders” at the G7 meeting as they “aligned behind his interim agreement” to pause fighting in Iran, “tensions again were expected to be on full display” at next month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Meloni’s pushback on Trump’s photograph claim is a “punctuation mark” on a growing trend among European leaders to speak against the Trump administration, said CNN.

Electoral opportunity ‘deftly utilized’

Meloni had been trying to “preserve some harmony” between herself and Trump “until this week,” said The New York Times. She has “sought some distance” from the president now, as their “friendship became a political liability among Italian voters.” Meloni is “doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity,” said Trump on Truth Social. Now that the U.S. has allegedly “defeated Iran militarily,” he continued, “she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up.’ No thanks!!!"

Trump may be correct that Meloni’s furthering of this feud is being done with an eye toward domestic Italian politics, said Fox News. The prime minister “must have calculated” that a “public row” with Trump “yields no tangible consequences other than an increase in her domestic and international standing,” said Mattia Diletti, a political science lecturer at Sapienza University of Rome, to the outlet.

Trump’s story is nevertheless “very difficult to believe,” said MS NOW. Not only has he “peddled similar absurdities before,” but “he’s not at all popular in Italy,” leaving Meloni “no political incentive to be seen with him.” Meloni’s pushback to Trump comes as the premier “gears up for a reelection battle,” in which her “close relationship” with Trump has become an “increasing political liability,” said the Financial Times.

Meloni faced a “setback in her grip on power in Italy” in March, after her government lost a battle over justice reform, said Time. Critics saw that defeat as a “barometer of how Italians perceived her closeness" with Trump, and how they have been “troubled by Trump’s globally destabilizing actions.”

Meloni “deftly utilized the opportunity” presented by the president in his photography blame-game to “distance herself from Trump,” said the Financial Times. Italian diplomats are “now working in overdrive,” hoping to “limit the fallout or deter Trump from retaliating against Italy.” Meloni’s “international policy is in tatters,” said former Italian NATO Ambassador Stefano Stefanini to the outlet. In reimagining Italian foreign policy moving forward, she “has to be careful not to appear to flip-flop.” Italians will “remember her closeness to Trump, so she has to tread this very carefully.”

It’s a pattern “as regular and predictable as the tides,” said Moira Donegan in The Guardian: A Democrat wins an election, and President Trump says the election was rigged. His latest target is the Los Angeles mayoral primary, where Republican Spencer Pratt fell to third place—and off the November ballot—behind Democratic incumbent Karen Bass and progressive challenger Nithya Raman as late-arriving mail-in ballots were counted. Trump has since repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that the election was stolen, even storming off Meet the Press when challenged on the claim. This is “a preview of what is likely to come” in November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are widely expected to lose congressional seats and control of the House. In Trump’s world, every Democratic victory is “invalid, fraudulent, and null,” and the only fair elections “are the ones where Republicans win.”

Unfortunately, the Right “seems to be along for the ride,” said Aaron Blake in CNN.com. Prominent Republicans, including JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, and Mike Johnson, have amplified Trump’s baseless claims, with Johnson saying Democratic election fraud is “so diabolical and so far upstream it is impossible to prove.” Polls show that 70% of Republicans expect election fraud in November. Trump has a new plan to block mail-in ballots, said Adam Sella and Nick Corasaniti in The New York Times. The U.S. Postal Service has proposed an “unprecedented and potentially unconstitutional” rule that would allow it to refuse delivery of mail-in ballots in states that won’t turn over voter rolls to the federal government for “screening.” Trump recently told a group of GOP lawmakers that restricting mail-in ballots “will guarantee the midterms.”

“It does, in fact, take a long time to count ballots in California,” said Jessica Levinson in MS.now. The state accepts all ballots postmarked by Election Day, even those that arrive up to a week after. Does that sometimes mean that initial results change? “Absolutely. That’s what happens when you count votes.” Sorry, that’s no excuse, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. California Democrats have made it “exceptionally easy” to cast ballots by mail to boost turnout among their likely voters, but the result is a “sloth-like” ballot count that can leave results in question for days. It’s a “disservice to democracy” to leave voters hanging, which can only “fuel distrust in elections and play into the hands of Trump.”

What happened

A tired but upbeat President Trump found common ground with fellow Group of Seven leaders in France last week, gaining their support for his Iran peace deal and lending his to a joint declaration to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia. At the first session, Trump stood at the head of the table and jokingly declared, “I’m the boss,” before ceding the floor to French President Emmanuel Macron, who was hosting the summit in the Alpine town of Évian-les-Bains. Meeting cordially with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump suggested the U.S. might reintroduce sanctions on Russian oil. But he also indicated that the Ukraine war wasn’t a major U.S. priority, saying it “has no impact on us, other than we sell weapons,” and adding, “we’re thousands of miles away.”

U.S. relations with fellow G-7 members—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K.—have been strained over Trump’s threats against allies’ sovereignty and demands that they support his Iran war, but G-7 leaders made great efforts to keep the president happy. In a joint statement, they praised Trump’s “strong leadership” in securing the Iran deal. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose recent criticism of the Iran war spurred Trump to pull some U.S. troops from Germany, gave him a soccer jersey with the number 47, and said, “We’re on the same team.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who had sharply criticized Trump’s recent broadsides against Pope Leo XIV, was seen chatting with the U.S. president at the summit. Asked if she and Trump were friends again, she said, “We have always been friends.”

What the columnists said

“For all the sharp elbows” of the past year, G-7 leaders have decided “the best way to deal with a disruptive president is to court him,” said Mark Landler in The New York Times. At last year’s summit in Canada, Trump departed early, accusing the others of making a “big mistake” by ousting Russia from the group in 2014. This time it was all flattery, and Trump was in a better mood. Macron even bestowed a rare honor on Trump, inviting him to dine at the opulent Palace of Versailles. “Versailles is not a gold leaf,” Trump said appreciatively. “Versailles is the real deal.”

Among the G-7 leaders, “the sense of relief was palpable,” said Nicholas Vinocur in Politico. Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer even offered military support to help the U.S. open the Strait of Hormuz, the oil transit corridor Iran had closed off, in exchange for Trump backing their resolution to support Ukraine. The goodwill has raised hopes that, with a critical NATO summit coming up next month, Trump can be kept “firmly inside the camp of Western powers.”

The bar is pretty low at these events these days, said Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Dan Diamond in The Washington Post. Success is defined “by the absence of rupture.” As Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it, “Getting the United States to just be, in some ways, normal and having this come across as a relatively routine summit—that’s the win.”

President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education took a major step forward this month after the White House reassigned the agency’s special education and civil rights programs to other federal agencies. His administration says the adjustments will maximize efficiency by pairing programs with the departments best suited for their execution. But critics claim the reassignments are an illegal effort to circumvent congressional funding challenges and will harm children and the country’s educational prospects.

What did the commentators say?

At the center of this latest episode is the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which protects the “rights of children with disabilities,” and its Office for Civil Rights, working with students who “experience discrimination based on race, sex or religion,” said The Associated Press. Those offices will now be operationally reassigned to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department, respectively.

Shifting the programs is “among some of the most high-stakes moves the Trump administration has made to end the agency,” said Politico. More than 100 of the Education Department’s programs and offices are “already relocating to five agencies — Interior, Labor, State, Treasury and Health and Human Services,” said Education Week. This spring, the Education Department also announced plans to “leave its Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters” and “turn the space over to the Energy Department,” said The Washington Post.

This latest change comes as “both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have raised concerns” with Education Secretary Linda McMahon over a “growing backlog of civil rights complaints in schools,” said The New York Times. Last month, the secretary told lawmakers she “wanted to hire more civil rights lawyers” for her department “despite a budget request from the White House to reduce funding for that office.”

By relocating the department’s programming now, critics say the White House is “weakening oversight after already drastically reducing staffing” in the affected offices, said the Times. McMahon has said that using interagency agreements will “help build the case for skeptical lawmakers” to “support abolishing the Department of Education as an independent agency” at large, said Education Week. But lawmakers “across both parties” seem “reluctant to affirmatively endorse this plan.”

“The irony here is that every action” the Department of Education claims will “reduce fraud, waste and abuse” ultimately creates “more chaos and confusion,” said former Office of Civil Rights attorney Beth Gellman-Beer to Inside Higher Ed. “No one understands how this is going to operationalize.” Ultimately, the shift could “make interagency coordination involving education programs more difficult,” said The 19th.

For instance, The 19th said, approximately “12% of students with disabilities are English learners” with about half attending Title I schools “serving economically disadvantaged children.” Rather than operating within a single department as they had in the past, the associated programs will henceforth be administered by “various federal agencies” across multiple departments.

What next?

Per the text of the agreement between the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services obtained by NPR, the latter “would do much of the work of administering formula grant programs” mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, said NPR’s “All Things Considered.” The Department of Education would provide “management and leadership,” as required by law. The plan is “likely to garner some pushback” from legislators, “including among Republican lawmakers” who want to ensure the government meets its “legal obligations to students with disabilities,” said Politico.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights will similarly “refer cases to the Department of Justice for evaluation and resolution” but will “continue to decide whether to pursue administrative enforcement action,” said Education Week. Legally, however, the agency’s Office of Civil Rights is “mandated to evaluate every complaint they receive,” while the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “can pick and choose which complaints it pursues,” said Inside Higher Ed. Critics fear “this partnership could lead the Office of Civil Rights to become more like the DOJ” by “picking and choosing which cases it will address based on political priorities.”

What happened

President Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that “terrible Vandals” had sabotaged his $14.7 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, leading to “multiple” arrests and requiring contractors to “drain much of the water” again for “necessary repairs.” Administration officials said at least five people have been arrested on vandalism charges, apparently for reaching into the algae-filled pool and touching or removing the peeling “American Flag blue” coating.

Who said what

Trump said on social media that his pool makeover had “worked perfectly” before people cut a “250 foot long gash” into the coating and “poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.” He offered no evidence, and it “wasn’t immediately clear” how anyone could cut the new coating, which is “like a coarse coat of paint,” The Wall Street Journal said. But hydrogen peroxide, which National Park Service workers have been dumping into the pool to kill the algae, can “also be used as a paint remover,” and painting the bottom of the “warm, shallow” pool navy blue “may have had the unintended effect of making the water warmer, which can further spur algae growth.”

What next?

Trump posted Sunday that he had “inspected” the pool and “work will begin immediately.”

What happened

The U.S. and Iran made “encouraging progress” after a rocky start to high-level peace talks in Switzerland, mediators Qatar and Pakistan said in a joint statement early Monday morning. The two sides approved a “roadmap” to reach a final deal during a 60-day truce, a “de-confliction cell” to ensure an end to “military operations in Lebanon” and a “communication line” to “avoid incidents and miscommunication” in the Strait of Hormuz.

The mediators had “delivered major progress to end Lebanon War,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on social media. Vice President JD Vance, the lead U.S. delegate, said in a press conference Sunday that “great progress” was being made.

Who said what

The negotiations “had a tense start,” The Associated Press said. As Vance talked of turning over “a new leaf” with Iran, President Donald Trump threatened on social media to “hit Iran very hard again” if it didn’t “immediately stop” Hezbollah from “causing trouble” in Lebanon. Trump told Fox News he had warned Iranian officials that if they closed the Strait of Hormuz, as they purported to do over the weekend, “you won’t have a country” or “even make it back to your f---ing country.”

Iranian state media reported that Trump’s threats “prompted the Iranian delegation to leave the negotiation venue,” The Wall Street Journal said. They continued negotiating through the mediators.

What next?

Lower-level technical negotiations will continue at Switzerland’s lakeside Bürgenstock resort for the rest of the week, the mediators said.