Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. Here’s a summary of the key developments from today:

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  The White House described today’s meeting with Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and several holdouts on the GOP’s tax bill as “productive”. “The meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction. The President reiterated how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

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  Donald Trump ambushed the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, by playing him a video that he falsely claimed proved genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”. Ramaphosa – who earlier said that he had come to Washington to “reset” the relationship between the two countries – refused to take the bait and suggested that they “talk about it very calmly”.

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  South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, expects Trump to visit South Africa during G2o meeting. His spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, told South African TV station Newzroom Afrika that the Oval Office meeting was “an orchestrated show for the cameras” and that the “real business” of the trip was the bilateral closed-door meeting.

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  Donald Trump said he will make a decision in the near future about taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public, a move which he said he is giving “very serious consideration”. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he will speak with treasury secretary Scott Bessent; commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick; and federal housing finance director, William Pulte, about doing so.

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  The Trump administration formally accepted the controversial gift of a Boeing 747 jetliner from the government of Qatar, and directed the air force to assess how quickly the plane can be upgraded for possible use as a new Air Force One. The offer of the jet has set off a firestorm of bipartisan criticism of Trump, particularly following the president’s visit to the country last week to arrange US business deals.

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  A federal judge ruled that the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to deport migrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of an injunction he had issued earlier. US district judge Brian E Murphy made the remark at an emergency hearing he had ordered in Boston following the Trump administration’s apparent deportation of eight people to South Sudan, despite most of them being from other countries. On Tuesday, Murphy ruled that the administration could not let a group of migrants being deported to South Sudan leave the custody of US immigration authorities.

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  The justice department moved to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, after the death of Breonna Taylor, saying it does not want to pursue the cases. The move shows how the civil rights division of the justice department is changing rapidly under Donald Trump, dismantling Biden-era work and investigating diversity programs. It also comes amid pressure on the right to recast Floyd’s murder, undermine diversity efforts and define liberal-run cities like Minneapolis as crime-ridden.

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  The US army said it has no plans to recognize Donald Trump’s birthday on 14 June when he presides over part of the army’s celebrations of its 250th anniversary. Trump, who is turning 79 on the same day, will play a big role in the celebrations, which will cost between $25m and $45m, will see the army hold a parade down Washington’s Constitution Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares that cuts through the capital. The parade was not part of the original planning for the 14 June celebrations and was added this year, stoking criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others that Trump has hijacked the event.

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  Trump nominated Darryl Nirenberg, a lawyer and former Senate staffer, to serve as the next US ambassador to Romania. Nirenberg, a longtime Washington lawyer currently at Steptoe LLP law firm, was chief of staff for late Republican senator Jesse Helms and was a counsel for the Senate foreign relations committee. The nomination will require Senate approval.

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  A federal judge rejected a bid by the US treasury department to cancel a union contract covering tens of thousands of IRS staff, in an early blow to Trump’s efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many federal workers.

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  Democratic US representative Gerry Connolly died aged 75,his family said in a statement posted to his account on X this morning following the Virginia lawmaker’s cancer diagnosis last year. At the end of last month, Connolly announced he would be retiring from Congress at the end of this term and stepping back from his role as ranking member on the House oversight committee after finding out his cancer had returned. He died peacefully at home surrounded by family, their statement said.

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The White House described today’s meeting with Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and several holdouts on the GOP’s tax bill as “productive”.

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“The meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction. The President reiterated how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

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The Trump administration will halt $365m in federal funding originally allocated for rooftop solar power in Puerto Rico and instead redirect it toward fossil fuel power plants and infrastructure repairs.

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Puerto Rico has long struggled with frequent blackouts caused by aging infrastructure, the 2017 bankruptcy of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, and repeated hurricanes. Just last month, the island experienced a major blackout, followed by another that affected 134,000 customers.

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According to the Department of Energy, the redirected funds will go toward immediate fixes, such as “dispatching baseload generation units, supporting vegetation control to protect transmission lines and upgrading aging infrastructure”. Baseload generation in this case refers to power plants that run on oil products and potentially natural gas.

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}],”data”:{“alt”:”powerlines”,”caption”:”Power lines rise in front of electric towers and smokestacks at the Palo Seco power plant in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, on 8 May.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Alejandro Granadillo/AP”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Last week, energy secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order that directed Puerto Rico’s state-owned utility to tackle electricity shortfalls with power generated by oil-burning power plants, which emit pollution, including the greenhouse gases that cause climate change and global warming.

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The administration of Donald Trump has supported maximizing the output of fossil fuels and dismantling policies by Joe Biden’s administration designed to spur use of renewable power.

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“The redirection of these funds will expand access to reliable power for millions of people rather than thousands and generate a higher return on investment for taxpayers while advancing grid resiliency for Puerto Rico,” the department said in a statement.

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Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, told South African TV station Newzroom Afrika that the Oval Office meeting was “an orchestrated show for the cameras” and that the “real business” of the trip was the bilateral closed-door meeting.

n “President Ramaphosa came here not for a TV show, he came here to discuss with President Trump in earnest how we can reset the strategic relationship between South Africa and the US,” Magwenya said.

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South African president Cyril Ramaphosa was more cordial about the meeting during a press conference this afternoon.

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“Much as he flighted the the video and all those press clippings, and in the end, I mean, I do believe that that is there’s doubt and disbelief in his head about all this”, Ramaphosa said. “I have agreed that we’re going to meet again, and we will meet at the G20 by meeting again.”

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Another day, another shocking Oval Office meeting between Trump and a world leader. This time it was South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, who was ambushed by the US president; Trump requested dimmed lights for video footage to be played purporting to show anti-white violence in the country and relentlessly peddled false accusations of “genocide” and Afrikaners being “executed” as justification for admitting them into the US as refugees. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Trump then held up printouts of news articles about what he said were killings of white South Africans, repeating “death, death, death” as he flipped through the pages.

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In an effort to diffuse the chaos, Ramaphosa kept composed as he tried to explain to Trump that while violent crime affects people of all races in his country most victims are black, white people are not being persecuted there, and his government is trying to redress the enduring injustices of South Africa’s apartheid past. He even quipped that he was sorry he didn’t have a plane to give Trump, to which Trump said he wished he did. Ramaphosa said he was willing to talk with him about his concerns “outside of the media” – which is worth noting given the feeling expressed by many that Trump and JD Vance’s bust-up with Volodymyr Zelenskyy back in February was very much a made-for-TV humiliation of Ukraine’s president.

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In other news:

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n
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  The Trump administration formally accepted the controversial gift of a Boeing 747 jetliner from the government of Qatar, and directed the air force to assess how quickly the plane can be upgraded for possible use as a new Air Force One. The offer of the jet has set off a firestorm of bipartisan criticism of Trump, particularly following the president’s visit to the country last week to arrange US business deals. Here’s our write-up.

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  A federal judge ruled that the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to deport migrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of an injunction he had issued earlier. US district judge Brian E Murphy made the remark at an emergency hearing he had ordered in Boston following the Trump administration’s apparent deportation of eight people to South Sudan, despite most of them being from other countries. On Tuesday, Murphy ruled that the administration could not let a group of migrants being deported to South Sudan leave the custody of US immigration authorities. My colleague Maya Yang has the story.

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  The justice department moved to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, after the death of Breonna Taylor, saying it does not want to pursue the cases. The move shows how the civil rights division of the justice department is changing rapidly under Donald Trump, dismantling Biden-era work and investigating diversity programs. It also comes amid pressure on the right to recast Floyd’s murder, undermine diversity efforts and define liberal-run cities like Minneapolis as crime-ridden. Full story here.

n

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  The US army said it has no plans to recognize Donald Trump’s birthday on 14 June when he presides over part of the army’s celebrations of its 250th anniversary. Trump, who is turning 79 on the same day, will play a big role in the celebrations, which will cost between $25m and $45m, will see the army hold a parade down Washington’s Constitution Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares that cuts through the capital. The parade was not part of the original planning for the 14 June celebrations and was added this year, stoking criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others that Trump has hijacked the event. More here.

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  Trump nominated Darryl Nirenberg, a lawyer and former Senate staffer, to serve as the next US ambassador to Romania. Nirenberg, a longtime Washington lawyer currently at Steptoe LLP law firm, was chief of staff for late Republican senator Jesse Helms and was a counsel for the Senate foreign relations committee. The nomination will require Senate approval.

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  A federal judge rejected a bid by the US treasury department to cancel a union contract covering tens of thousands of IRS staff, in an early blow to Trump’s efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many federal workers. More on that here.

n

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  Democratic US representative Gerry Connolly died aged 75,his family said in a statement posted to his account on X this morning following the Virginia lawmaker’s cancer diagnosis last year. At the end of last month, Connolly announced he would be retiring from Congress at the end of this term and stepping back from his role as ranking member on the House oversight committee after finding out his cancer had returned. He died peacefully at home surrounded by family, their statement said.

n

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The US army has said it has no plans to recognize Donald Trump’s birthday on 14 June when he presides over part of the army’s celebrations of its 250th anniversary.

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Trump, who is turning 79 on the same day, will play a big role in the celebrations, which will see soldiers parachuting in to present him with a folded flag. The army will also hold a parade down Washington’s Constitution Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares that cuts through the capital.

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The parade was not part of the original planning for the 14 June celebrations and was added this year, stoking criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others that Trump has hijacked the event.

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Asked if there were any plans by the Army to recognize the president’s birthday, Steve Warren, an army spokesperson, told reporters at the Pentagon:

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n

I don’t think we have a plan for that. This has been the army’s birthday … We’ve had 249 previous of these. We’re excited that the commander-in-chief is interested in the army’s 250th anniversary and that he will want to view it.

n

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The celebrations will cost the army between $25m and $45m and will see M1A1 Abrams tanks and other heavy vehicles participating in a parade meant to honor the army’s history.

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A federal judge has ruled that the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to deport migrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of an injunction he had issued earlier.

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Brian E Murphy, the US district judge in Massachusetts, made the remark at an emergency hearing he had ordered in Boston following the Trump administration’s apparent deportation of eight people to South Sudan, despite most of them being from other countries.

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On Tuesday, Murphy ruled that the Trump administration could not let a group of migrants being deported to South Sudan leave the custody of US immigration authorities. In his order, Murphy wrote: “While the court leaves the practicalities of compliance to defendants’ discretion … the court expects that class members will be treated humanely.”

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Last month, Murphy had issued an injunction that required any people being deported to a third country to receive due process. After reports of the apparent South Sudan flight, the judge told Elianis Perez, a justice department lawyer:

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n

I have a strong indication that my preliminary injunction order has been violated.

n

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At the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing, Perez declined to say where the plane carrying the migrants landed, citing “very serious operational and safety concerns”.

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Perez also disputed Murphy’s finding that the migrants were not afforded the opportunity to challenge their deportations, Reuters reports.

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At Wednesday’s hearing, Murphy said that he would leave the discussion of criminal penalties against the homeland security department for another day.

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In an earlier briefing on Wednesday, a homeland security spokesperson acknowledged the deportation was occurring, but refused to say whether the final destination was South Sudan, a highly unstable country that has widely been described as on the verge of descending into another episode of civil war.

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“We conducted a deportation flight from Texas to remove some of the most barbaric, violent individuals illegally in the United States. These are the monsters that the district judge is trying to protect,” the spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, said.

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McLaughlin went on to add:

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n

It is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States.

n

Because of safety and operational security, we cannot tell you what the final destination for these individuals will be.

n

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The meeting is ongoing but let’s just recap what just happened as Donald Trump greeted South African president Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House and how the conversation descended into the most contentious areas of dispute between the countries, most pertinently Trump’s repeated (false) claims of a “white genocide”.

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South Africa rejects the allegation that white people are disproportionately targeted by crime. As Ramaphosa alluded to in the meeting, murder rates are high in the country and the overwhelming majority of victims are black.

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After a friendly initial chat in which Trump complimented South African golfers and Ramaphosa said he wanted to talk about critical minerals and trade, Trump had the lights dimmed to play a video that purported to show evidence of a genocide against white farmers in South Africa.

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Ramaphosa mostly sat expressionless while the video was played, occasionally craning his neck to look at it. Trump claimed the video showed the graves of thousands of white farmers. Ramaphosa said he had not seen that before, and that he would like to find out what the location was.

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Trump then displayed printed copies of articles that he said showed white South Africans who had been killed, saying “death, death” as he flipped through them.

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Ramaphosa said there was crime in South Africa, and the majority of victims were black. Trump cut him off to say: “The farmers are not black.”

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Ramaphosa responded: “These are concerns we are willing to talk to you about.”

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Trump baselessly claimed white farmers are being “executed” in South Africa after having their land taken away. Ramaphosa replied: “They’re not.”

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In recent months, Trump has criticised South Africa’s land reform law aimed at redressing the injustices of apartheid and its genocide court case againstIsrael.

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He has cancelled aid, expelled South Africa’s ambassador and offered refuge to white minority Afrikaners based on racial discrimination claims that Pretoria says are unfounded.

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Trump has accused South Africa of seizing land from white farmers and of fuelling violence against white landowners with “hateful rhetoric and government actions”, an accusation he repeated in the Oval Office today.

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Pretoria says these claims are inaccurate and “fail to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history”, meaning its long history of domination by white colonialists, enshrined in the apartheid system.

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The stakes of today’s meeting are high for South Africa. The United States is its second-biggest trading partner after China, and the aid cut has already resulted in a drop in testing for HIV patients.

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Trump says his own administration’s cuts to USAID funding are “devastating”.

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He says he hopes other nations will “chip in” to solve the many problems going in on in lots of countries.

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Trump claims white farmers are being “executed” in South Africa after having their land taken away.

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Ramaphosa says: “They’re not.”

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“I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” says Ramaphosa as he tries to get the Oval Office meeting back on track.

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“I wish you did,” Trump responds.

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Ramaphosa says he is willing to talk to Trump about these issues that concern him.

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n

You’re a partner of South Africa, and you’re raising concerns – these are concerns we are willing to talk about.

n

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From here things go off the rails entirely.

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Trump asks for the lights to be turned down and has videos played for Ramaphosa claiming to support white genocide allegations.

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Ramaphosa, who sat quietly watching these videos, later said “I’d like to know where that is because this I’ve never seen” these videos.

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The US has formally accepted the highly controversial gift of a $4oom luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, according to the New York Times.

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Defense secretary Pete Hegseth accepted the gift and tasked the Air Force with determining a way to rapidly upgrade the Boeing-made 747 jetliner so it to be used as a new Air Force One, the NYT reports.

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We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

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Donald Trump has just greeted the South African president CyrilRamaphosa at the White House, where the two leaders will hold bilteral talks expected to focus on trade and tariffs, but also on Trump’s perception of South Africa’s treatment of its white Afrikaner minority.

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}],”data”:{“alt”:”Donald Trump greets Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House.”,”caption”:”Donald Trump greets Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1747843493000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”18.04 CEST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1747843995000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”18.13 CEST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1747843634000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”18.07 CEST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”18.07″,”title”:”South African president Cyril Ramaphosa arrives at White House for talks with Trump”,”contributors”:[] ,”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 22 May 2025 03.48 CEST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 21 May 2025 12.00 CEST”},{“id”:”682de5978f08871195827379″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

A homeland security official said on Wednesday that the US is seeking to deport eight migrants convicted of serious crimes, Reuters reports, but declined to confirm an allegation raised in federal court that the deportees were bound for South Sudan.

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We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

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The justice department moved on Wednesday to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, after the death of Breonna Taylor, saying it does not want to pursue the cases.

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The move shows how the civil rights division of the justice department is changing rapidly under Donald Trump, dismantling Biden-era work and investigating diversity programs. It also comes amid pressure on the right to recast Floyd’s murder, undermine diversity efforts and define liberal-run cities like Minneapolis as crime-ridden.

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Following a scathing report by the justice department in 2023, Minneapolis in January approved a consent decree with the federal government in the final days of the Biden administration to overhaul its training and use-of-force policies under court supervision.

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The agreement required approval from a federal court in Minnesota. But the Trump administration was granted a delay soon after taking office while it considered its options, and on Wednesday told the court it does not intend to proceed. It planned to file a similar motion in federal court in Kentucky.

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“After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest,” said the Minnesota motion, signed by Andrew Darlington, acting chief of the special litigation section of the justice department’s civil rights division. “The United States will no longer prosecute this matter.”

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Trump has generally opposed the use of consent decrees, through which the government has threatened lawsuits against police forces and then entered into reform agreements.

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Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump ally who oversees the now-gutted civil rights division of the justice department, said in a statement that “overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda”.

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The department said it would also be ending investigations or retracting findings of constitutional violations into police departments in Phoenix, Arizona; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Louisiana state police.

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A federal judge has ordered US officials to appear at an emergency hearing today to answer questions about their apparent deportation of immigrants to South Sudan and other countries, The Associated Press reports.

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US district judge Brian E Murphy in Massachusetts ruled late on Tuesday that the Trump administration must retain custody and control of those “currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return” if he finds such removals were unlawful. Lawyers for the immigrants said the administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan despite a court order restricting removals to other countries.

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The judge left the details to the government’s discretion, but said he expects the migrants “will be treated humanely”.

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Attorneys for the migrants told the judge that immigration authorities may have sent as many as a dozen people from several countries to parts of Africa. The lawyers say that violates a court order that people have a “meaningful opportunity” to argue that sending them to a country outside their homeland would threaten their safety.

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The apparent removal of one man from Myanmar was confirmed in an email from an immigration official in Texas, according to court documents. He was informed only in English, a language he does not speak well, and his lawyers learned of the plan hours before his deportation flight, they said.

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A woman also reported that her husband from Vietnam and up to 10 other people were flown to Africa on Tuesday morning, attorneys from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote.

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The lawyers asked Murphy for an emergency court order to prevent the deportations.

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Murphy previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would “clearly” violate his ruling, which also applies to people who have otherwise exhausted their legal appeals.

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The judge summoned US officials to court today to identify the migrants impacted, address when and how they learned they would be removed to a third country and what opportunity they were given to raise a fear-based claim. He also ruled that the government must provide information about the whereabouts of the migrants apparently already removed.

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South Sudan’s police spokesperson major general James Monday Enoka told AP on Wednesday that no migrants had arrived in the country and that if they do, they would be investigated and again “redeported to their correct country” if found not to be South Sudanese.

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The state department’s annual report on South Sudan, published in April 2024, says “significant human rights issues” include arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture or inhumane treatment by security forces and extensive violence based on gender and sexual identity.

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South Sudan’s diplomatic relations with the US grew tense in April when a deportation row led to the revocation of visas and a ban on South Sudanese nationals.

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Donald Trump has chosen Darryl Nirenberg, a lawyer and former Senate staffer, to serve as the next US ambassador to Romania, Reuters reports.

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The White House and state department have yet to comment on the outcome of Romania’s presidential election on Sunday, which was won by the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, who defeated a far-right candidate.

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Nirenberg, a longtime Washington lawyer currently at Steptoe LLP law firm, was chief of staff for late Republican senator Jesse Helms and was a counsel for the Senate foreign relations committee.

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The nomination requires approval by the Senate.

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A federal judge has rejected a bid by the US treasury department to cancel a union contract covering tens of thousands of IRS staff, Reuters reports, in an early blow to Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many federal workers.

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US district judge Danny Reeves in Lexington, Kentucky, said in a written opinion late on Tuesday that the department lacked legal standing to bring a lawsuit against the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

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After Trump issued an executive order exempting treasury and other agencies from union bargaining obligations, the agency sued an affiliate of the NTEU that represents the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees, to invalidate a bargaining agreement reached in 2022.

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Reeves dismissed the case, saying the lawsuit was premature because the treasury had not yet taken any steps to implement Trump’s order. “This decision says nothing of the merits of the case,” the judge wrote. “Had Treasury filed suit in response to an invasion or threatened invasion of its sovereign right to enforce [Trump’s order] , a different result likely would have been reached.”

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A US appeals court last week paused a ruling by a judge in Washington DC that had blocked seven agencies including the treasury from implementing Trump’s order in a lawsuit by the NTEU.

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Trump’s executive order excluded from collective bargaining obligations agencies that he said “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work”. It applies to the justice, state, defense, treasury, veterans affairs, and health and human services departments, among other agencies. The NTEU has said the order applies to about 100,000 of its 160,000 members.

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The treasury department sued the NTEU affiliate a day after Trump issued the order, seeking a declaration that gave the treasury the authority to end its bargaining relationship with the union.

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The department said federal civil service law empowers the president to exempt agencies from bargaining when he deems it necessary to protect national security, and that courts lack the authority to review and second guess those determinations.

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NTEU and other federal worker unions have accused Trump of issuing the order to punish them for bringing legal challenges to a number of his policies.

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US district judge Paul Friedman in DC ruled in the NTEU’s lawsuit in April that Trump had not adequately justified reversing decades of practice and exempting large swaths of the federal workforce from bargaining. But an appeals court panel in blocking that ruling said it was likely to be overturned on appeal.

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Eight federal agencies have filed a separate lawsuit against the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal worker union, seeking to invalidate existing union contracts covering thousands of workers. The union has moved to dismiss that case, with a hearing scheduled for June.

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Democratic US representative Gerry Connolly has died, his family said in a statement posted to his account on X this morning following the Virginia lawmaker’s cancer diagnosis last year. He was 75.

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Connolly was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2008 and served as the top Democrat on the House committee on oversight and government reform.

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“We were fortunate to share Gerry with Northern Virginia for nearly 40 years,” his family wrote, calling him “a fierce defender of democracy” and a champion for the environment. “Gerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better.”

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pic.twitter.com/jpWKyDUzEN

— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) May 21, 2025

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At the end of last month, Connolly announced he would be retiring from Congress at the end of this term and stepping back from his role as ranking member on the House oversight committee after finding out his cancer had returned.

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In their statement, his family said he “passed away peacefully at his home this morning surrounded by family”.

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The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the course of events meant that Russia and the United States should resume contacts about strategic stability.

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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that US plans for the launch of the “Golden Dome” anti-missile system was a sovereign matter for the United States, Reuters reports.

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“This is a sovereign matter for the United States. If the United States believes that there is a missile threat, then of course it will develop a missile defence system,” Peskov said, adding the plan would require resuming nuclear talks with Washington.

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China is concerned about a US project to build the Golden Dome missile defense shield and urged Washington to abandon its development and deployment, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

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Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had selected a design for the project and named a Space Force general to head the ambitious program aimed at blocking threats from China and Russia, Reuters reported.

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Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about the project at a regular press conference, said it carries “strong offensive implications” and heightens the risks of the militarization of outer space and an arms race.

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“The United States, in pursuing a ‘US-first’ policy, is obsessed with seeking absolute security for itself. This violates the principle that the security of all countries should not be compromised and undermines global strategic balance and stability. China is seriously concerned about this,” Mao said.

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She urged Washington to abandon the development of the system as soon as possible and take actions to enhance trust among major powers.

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Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that his administration will move forward with developing the so-called “Golden Dome” missile defense system that he envisions will protect the United States from possible foreign strikes using ground and space-based weapons.

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Flanked by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, in the Oval Office, Trump also said that he wanted the project to be operational before he left office. He added that Republicans had agreed to allocate $25bn in initial funding and Canada had expressed an interest in taking part.

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“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space,” Trump said, “forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.”

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What exactly the Golden Dome will look like remains unclear. Trump has not yet decided which of three options proposed by the defense department he wants to pursue. Pentagon officials recently drafted three proposals – small, medium and large – for Trump to consider.

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The proposals all broadly combine ground-based missile interceptors currently used by the US military with more ambitious and hi-tech systems to build a space-based defense program.

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The option that Trump chooses will determine its timeline and cost. The $25bn coming from Republicans’ budget bill is only set to cover initial development costs. The final price tag could exceed $540bn over the next two decades, according to the congressional budget office.

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Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.

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Let’s start with the news that Donald Trump‘s eldest son Donald Trump Jr said in Qatar on Wednesday that he could maybe run for president one day, adding “that calling is there.”

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“So the answer is I don’t know, maybe one day. You know, that calling is there. I’ll always be very active in terms of being a vocal proponent of these things. I think my father has truly changed the Republican Party,” he said, speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum.

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When asked by the panel moderator if he would run and “pick up the reins” after his father leaves office, his initial reaction was: “Here we go. Well … oh boy,” to faint applause from the audience, adding, “it’s an honour to be asked and an honour to see that some people are OK with it.”

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Speaking alongside 1789 Capital founder Omeed Malik, Trump, 47, joked that the people clapping were “the couple of people we know”.

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In other news:

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  The Trump administration said it will permit use of Covid vaccines by adults over 65 and those with certain medical conditions in the fall, raising questions about whether some people who want a vaccine will be able to get one. The FDA framework, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, urges companies to conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people.

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  A federal judge said that the Trump administration appeared to have violated his April court order by deporting a Burmese immigrant to South Sudan without giving him sufficient time to contest the removal, especially given the risk of being sent to a country that is not his own. Judge Brian E Murphy in Boston made the remarks during a hearing in federal district court after immigration attorneys raised alarm that at least one other immigrant may also have been deported to South Sudan without due process.

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  Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a “comprehensive review” of the United States’ chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, an evacuation operation in which 13 US service members and 150 Afghans were killed at Kabul’s airport in an Islamic State bombing. It was unclear how Hegseth’s review would differ from the many previous reviews that have been carried out – including by the US military, the state department and even Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives.

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  The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the Senate foreign relations committee that the number of visas he has revoked was “probably in the thousands”, adding that he believed there was still more to do. “I don’t know the latest count, but we probably have more to do. A visa is not a right, it’s a privilege.”

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  The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, couldn’t correctly state what habeas corpus is when pressed to define the concept by the Democratic US senator Maggie Hassan. Asked what habeas corpus is, Noem claimed it’s “a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to –”.

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  A group of fired federal workers held a sit-in on the House-side steps of the US Capitol in an effort to pressure members of Congress to do more to reign in Doge’s “harmful and illegal cuts to federal programs”. According to the Fork Off Coalition, the group includes “federal employees illegally terminated by Doge; contractors on cancelled federal contracts; and other workers harmed by Doge”.

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  Donald Trump defended the justice department’s decision to charge the Democratic representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers earlier this month. McIver faces a felony assault charge over a physical confrontation with Ice officials outside an immigrant detention facility in New Jersey.

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Closing summary

Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. Here’s a summary of the key developments from today:

• The White House described today’s meeting with Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and several holdouts on the GOP’s tax bill as “productive”. “The meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction. The President reiterated how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

• Donald Trump ambushed the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, by playing him a video that he falsely claimed proved genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”. Ramaphosa – who earlier said that he had come to Washington to “reset” the relationship between the two countries – refused to take the bait and suggested that they “talk about it very calmly”.

• South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, expects Trump to visit South Africa during G2o meeting. His spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, told South African TV station Newzroom Afrika that the Oval Office meeting was “an orchestrated show for the cameras” and that the “real business” of the trip was the bilateral closed-door meeting.

• Donald Trump said he will make a decision in the near future about taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public, a move which he said he is giving “very serious consideration”. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he will speak with treasury secretary Scott Bessent; commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick; and federal housing finance director, William Pulte, about doing so.

• The Trump administration formally accepted the controversial gift of a Boeing 747 jetliner from the government of Qatar, and directed the air force to assess how quickly the plane can be upgraded for possible use as a new Air Force One. The offer of the jet has set off a firestorm of bipartisan criticism of Trump, particularly following the president’s visit to the country last week to arrange US business deals.

• A federal judge ruled that the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to deport migrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of an injunction he had issued earlier. US district judge Brian E Murphy made the remark at an emergency hearing he had ordered in Boston following the Trump administration’s apparent deportation of eight people to South Sudan, despite most of them being from other countries. On Tuesday, Murphy ruled that the administration could not let a group of migrants being deported to South Sudan leave the custody of US immigration authorities.

• The justice department moved to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, after the death of Breonna Taylor, saying it does not want to pursue the cases. The move shows how the civil rights division of the justice department is changing rapidly under Donald Trump, dismantling Biden-era work and investigating diversity programs. It also comes amid pressure on the right to recast Floyd’s murder, undermine diversity efforts and define liberal-run cities like Minneapolis as crime-ridden.

• The US army said it has no plans to recognize Donald Trump’s birthday on 14 June when he presides over part of the army’s celebrations of its 250th anniversary. Trump, who is turning 79 on the same day, will play a big role in the celebrations, which will cost between $25m and $45m, will see the army hold a parade down Washington’s Constitution Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares that cuts through the capital. The parade was not part of the original planning for the 14 June celebrations and was added this year, stoking criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others that Trump has hijacked the event.

• Trump nominated Darryl Nirenberg, a lawyer and former Senate staffer, to serve as the next US ambassador to Romania. Nirenberg, a longtime Washington lawyer currently at Steptoe LLP law firm, was chief of staff for late Republican senator Jesse Helms and was a counsel for the Senate foreign relations committee. The nomination will require Senate approval.

• A federal judge rejected a bid by the US treasury department to cancel a union contract covering tens of thousands of IRS staff, in an early blow to Trump’s efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many federal workers.

• Democratic US representative Gerry Connolly died aged 75,his family said in a statement posted to his account on X this morning following the Virginia lawmaker’s cancer diagnosis last year. At the end of last month, Connolly announced he would be retiring from Congress at the end of this term and stepping back from his role as ranking member on the House oversight committee after finding out his cancer had returned. He died peacefully at home surrounded by family, their statement said.

Trump adviser Elon Musk paid a visit to Capitol Hill earlier today to discuss energy issues, artificial intelligence, and enhancing competitiveness against the Chinese government with senators, Politico reports.

Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, met for more than an hour with a group of Republicans on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Musk was “seen entering a meeting room on the Senate side of the Capitol complex in something of a surprise appearance to most lawmakers and aides,” the news outlet reports.

The group did not discuss the Department of Government Efficiency and that Musk spoke only about AI, Texas senator Ted Cruz told NBC News.

“This was for Republican members of the Commerce Committee to ask questions, and he brought his X AI team to answer technical questions about what they’re doing and what the challenges are they’re facing,” Cruz said.

“I think it was very productive. We try to — I try to periodically bring together experts who can help inform members of the committee of what the challenges are that we’re facing as a country and what potential solutions are to help us overcome those challenges,” he added.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also met Musk at the Pentagon on Wednesday, officials said, the second known time the Doge head has visited the department’s headquarters.

Musk has recently begun to step back in his official White House activities after months of overseeing a rapid, unprecedented dismantling of the federal bureaucracy.

Nearly all of the 400 books that the US Naval Academy removed from its library after being told by the office of the defense secretary to review and get rid of any that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, have been returned to the shelves after a new Pentagon-ordered review.

Defense officials told the Associated Press that about 20 books are still under review at the Naval Academy, including some that weren’t part of the original purge of 381 titles. At the Air Force Academy and other Air Force libraries, a few dozen books have also been pulled for review, the officials said.

Pulling books off shelves part of a broader campaign to eliminate so-called DEI content from federal agencies, including policies, programs, online and social media postings and curriculum at schools.

Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has aggressively pushed the department to erase DEI programs and online content, but the campaign has been met with questions from angry lawmakers, local leaders and citizens over the removal of military heroes and historic mentions from defense department websites and social media pages.

Donald Trump said he will make a decision in the near future about taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public, a move which he said he is giving “very serious consideration”.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he will speak with treasury secretary Scott Bessent; commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick; and federal housing finance director, William Pulte, about doing so.

He added: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing very well, throwing off a lot of CASH, and the time would seem to be right. Stay tuned!”

These two companies are the backbone of the US housing market. Together they support about 70% of US mortgages.

Republicans have blocked a vote on legislation by Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, that would ban the US from using a foreign plane as Air Force One.

Schumer went to the floor to ask for a vote on his bill the same day that the defense department accepted a $400m plane from Qatar for Trump to use as Air Force One. Schumer said it is “outrageous” that the Trump administration accepted the plane.

“This gift screams national security risk,” Schumer said.

Republican senator Roger Marshall, of Kansas, objected, blocking a vote. He did not offer an explanation for his objection.

White House says tax bill meeting ‘moved ball in right direction’

The White House described today’s meeting with Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and several holdouts on the GOP’s tax bill as “productive”.

“The meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction. The President reiterated how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Tensions rose during EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday as he clashed with Democratic senators over the Trump administration’s push to cut the agency’s budget and roll back environmental regulations.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island questioned Zeldin about the abrupt termination of nearly 800 EPA grants. Whitehouse cited a court statement claiming the reviews were done in a single day by one official. Zeldin insisted multiple staff conducted the reviews over time. The exchange quickly escalated into both men shouting over each other.

“We’re not going to waste taxpayer dollars just because you want us to,” Zeldin snapped. Whitehouse countered by accusing Zeldin of contradicting official court testimony.

Senator Adam Schiff of California told Zeldin that a plan to cut EPA spending by 55% means that, to Zeldin and Trump, “more than half of the environmental efforts of the EPA … to make sure Americans have clean air and clean water are just a waste.”

If approved by Congress, the budget cuts “will mean there’s more diesel and more other particulate matter in the air” and that “water that Americans drink is going to have more chemicals,” Schiff said.

A federal court has ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a detained Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist, must be allowed to meet with his wife.

The order comes after Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied her request to visit him at the detention center in Jena, Louisiana, where he has been held for more than two months.

Abdalla, a dentist who gave birth to their first child last month, said she wants Khalil to have the chance to hold his newborn son.

The ruling comes after a graduation ceremony at Columbia University in New York City was filled with boos and chants of “Free Mahmoud” as students voiced their displeasure that the activist remains in detention and was unable to join the rest of the class of 2025 in graduating.

His wife accepted a diploma for Khalil on his behalf at an alternative graduation ceremony on Sunday.

The Trump administration arrested Khalil, 30, on 8 March and is seeking to deport him over his participation in protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians.

The judge said in a written ruling that Khalil must be allowed to meet with his lawyers and his wife before 10.30am CDT (1530 GMT) on Thursday.

Trump administration halts $365m solar project in Puerto Rico, prioritizes fossil fuels

The Trump administration will halt $365m in federal funding originally allocated for rooftop solar power in Puerto Rico and instead redirect it toward fossil fuel power plants and infrastructure repairs.

Puerto Rico has long struggled with frequent blackouts caused by aging infrastructure, the 2017 bankruptcy of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, and repeated hurricanes. Just last month, the island experienced a major blackout, followed by another that affected 134,000 customers.

According to the Department of Energy, the redirected funds will go toward immediate fixes, such as “dispatching baseload generation units, supporting vegetation control to protect transmission lines and upgrading aging infrastructure”. Baseload generation in this case refers to power plants that run on oil products and potentially natural gas.

Last week, energy secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order that directed Puerto Rico’s state-owned utility to tackle electricity shortfalls with power generated by oil-burning power plants, which emit pollution, including the greenhouse gases that cause climate change and global warming.

The administration of Donald Trump has supported maximizing the output of fossil fuels and dismantling policies by Joe Biden’s administration designed to spur use of renewable power.

“The redirection of these funds will expand access to reliable power for millions of people rather than thousands and generate a higher return on investment for taxpayers while advancing grid resiliency for Puerto Rico,” the department said in a statement.

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” report about childhood diseases is raising questions among farmers and some Republican lawmakers.

President Donald Trump promised a review within 100 days that would analyze the ramifications that US lifestyle — from the medications prescribed for children to the food served on their school lunch trays — has on childhood diseases like obesity, depression or attention deficit disorder.

Farmers and Republicans are nervous about what the report might say about glyphosate, the ingredient commonly used in pesticides sprayed on crops. Kennedy has denied the report will be unfavorable to farmers.

The report, led by a so-called “MAHA Commission,” is expected to be released on Thursday.

Here’s what some lawmakers had to say:

“I hope there is nothing in the MAHA report that jeopardizes the food supply or the livelihood of farmers,” Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said.

“There’s a reason why we still use: It works,” said Blake Hurst, a Missouri farmer who is past president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, said about glyphosate.

Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday dismissed speculation of a falling out with the US administration following a visit to the Gulf by Donald Trump that left out Israel.

With the coupling of the US president’s Gulf visit – excluding Israel – and his decision to end US airstrikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis despite their continued attacks on Israel, media speculation grew over a possible rift with Washington.

The Israeli prime minister, who had previously made no public comment on the issue, told reporters at a news conference that he had spoken to Trump about 10 days ago and Trump had told him: “‘Bibi I want you to know, I have a complete commitment to you and I have a complete commitment to the state of Israel.’”

Amid growing international pressure on Israel, Trump has acknowledged that people are starving in Gaza and the US would have the situation in the territory “taken care of” as it suffered a further wave of intense Israeli airstrikes.

In a separate conversation a few days ago, Netanyahu said JD Vance had told him: “Don’t pay attention to all these fake news stories about this rupture between us.”.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said yesterday that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza in 48 hours if aid did not reach them in time.