Category Archives: Trump administration

Iran’s nuclear enrichment ‘will never stop’, nation’s UN ambassador says

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Amir-Saeid Iravani says Tehran is ready for negotiations but Trump’s ‘unconditional surrender is not negotiation’

Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”

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Trump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator says

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Mark Warner says school would face slashes to jobs and financial aid if its president did not resign over DEI practices

The University of Virginia (UVA) received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator.

During an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator for Virginia, defended Ryan – who had championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted that Donald Trump will similarly target other universities.

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Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran report

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President dismisses leaked assessment suggesting strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development

Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.

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US says Haitians can be deported – days after ruling Haiti unsafe for Americans

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Trump administration revokes temporary protected status for citizens of country racked by deadly violence

More than half a million Haitians are facing the prospect of deportation from the US after the Trump administration announced that the Caribbean country’s citizens would no longer be afforded shelter under a government program created to protect the victims of major natural disasters or conflicts.

Haiti has been engulfed by a wave of deadly violence since the 2021 murder of its president, Jovenel Moïse. Heavily armed gangs have brought chaos to its capital, Port-au-Prince, since launching an insurrection that toppled the prime minister last year. On Tuesday, the US embassy in Haiti urged US citizens to abandon the violence-stricken Caribbean country. “Depart Haiti as soon as possible,” it wrote on X.

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University of Toronto agrees to host Harvard students facing Trump visa restrictions

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Pact will help international students finish their studies amid Harvard’s legal battle with Trump administration

Harvard University and the University of Toronto and have announced a plan that would see some Harvard students complete their studies in Canada if visa restrictions prevent them from entering the United States.

The pact between the two schools reflects the tumultuous and “exceptional” politics of the postsecondary world during the second term of Donald Trump.

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‘Orchestrated grovel’: critics react to Europe’s attempts to tame Donald Trump

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Nato chief Mark Rutte derided for calling US president ‘daddy’ and showering him with praise over Iran

History may record this week as the one in which Donald Trump came to Europe to discuss defence spending.

Diplomats may remember it as the week in which the art of obsequiousness reached new highs and the sycophants plunged new lows.

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Trump is making US intelligence parrot his line on Iran – it echoes Bush’s invasion of Iraq

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Tailoring assessments to suit political prejudices undermines their very function and led us to the Iraq war

In the run-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, journalists covering the preparations for war became familiar with the concept of “stovepiping”.

The term described the tactic of pushing intelligence to key political decision makers, bypassing checks and balances within the system.

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Usha Vance: husband’s pick as Trump running mate came ‘like a bolt of lightning’

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Second lady says on Meghan McCain podcast she is ‘not plotting next steps’ and is just ‘along for the ride’

Usha Vance learned her husband, JD, had been selected to be Donald Trump’s running mate “maybe five minutes” before the news was made public – and just about an hour before he was formally nominated.

“It really was like a bolt of lightning,” Vance said during an interview on Meghan McCain’s podcast, Citizen McCain. Nearly a year later, seated in the Naval Observatory, Vance reflected on how radically her life has changed – “people call you ma’am. No one’s ever called me ma’am before this.”

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Trump DoJ ally denies claim he urged defying court orders on immigration

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Emil Bove, a former Trump attorney, faced Senate judiciary committee considering him to be federal appeals judge

Emil Bove, a top justice department official and former defense attorney for Donald Trump, denied to senators on Wednesday a whistleblower’s claim that he suggested prosecutors ignore orders from judges who ruled against the president’s immigration policy.

In a hearing before the Senate judiciary committee to consider his nomination to serve as a federal appeals court judge, Bove, currently the principal associate deputy attorney general at the justice department, also rejected assertions from Democrats that corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams were dropped in order to secure his cooperation with the president’s immigration enforcement agenda.

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Doge employee ‘Big Balls’ has resigned, says White House official

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One of Doge’s best-known workers Edward Coristine, 19, quits a month after his former boss Elon Musk’s departure

One of the US so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) service’s best-known employees, 19-year-old Edward Coristine, has resigned from the US government, a White House official said on Tuesday, a month after the acrimonious departure of his former boss Elon Musk.

The White House official gave no further details on the move and Coristine did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

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Judge blocks Trump from withholding EV charger funds awarded to 14 states

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Trump officials had ordered states not to spend $5bn given by Biden under national EV infrastructure scheme

A US district judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding funds previously awarded to 14 states for electric vehicle charger infrastructure.

Seattle-based judge Tana Lin, who was appointed to the bench by Joe Biden in 2021, granted a partial injunction to the states that filed suit against Trump’s Department of Transportation.

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CDC vaccine report cites study that does not exist, says scientist listed as author

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Robert Berman, cited in report on preservative thimerosal, says he ‘doesn’t endorse this misrepresentation of research’

A review on the use of the preservative thimerosal in vaccines slated to be presented on Thursday to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) outside vaccine committee cites a study that does not exist, the scientist listed as the study’s author said.

The report, called Thimerosal as a Vaccine Preservative published on the CDC website on Tuesday, is to be presented by Lyn Redwood, a former leader of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense.

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Man wrongfully deported to El Salvador must be returned to US, court rules

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White House must return Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported less than 30 minutes after his removal was barred

An appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to return a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador to the US and to explain how it is complying in a ruling apparently designed to break a pattern of apparent government defiance of judicial orders.

The US court of appeals for the second circuit in New York also required the government to provide a declaration of the current whereabouts and custodial status of Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported on 7 May less than half an hour after the court had expressly barred his removal.

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Trump rescinds protections on 59m acres of national forest to allow logging

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Agriculture secretary to scrap ‘roadless rule’ that protects lands including largest old growth forest in country

The Trump administration will rescind protections that prevent logging on nearly a third of national forest lands, including the largest old growth forest in the country, the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, announced on Monday.

The announcement will be followed by a formal notice rescinding the “roadless rule”, a nickname for the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, in coming weeks, the Associated Press reports. The rule prohibits road building and logging on all national forest land without roads, accounting for about 59m acres (24m hectares) of US national forest land.

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‘Clouded in mystery’: how Ice became a rogue agency that does Trump’s bidding

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

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

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

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Aukus vital to ‘deter Chinese aggression’, say US lawmakers, as Trump urged to recommit to submarine deal

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Alliance in best interests of Australia, UK and US, say lawmakers, after Trump administration announced 30-day review of pact

The Aukus pact is vital to “deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region”, Republican and Democrat lawmakers in the US have told the Pentagon, urging the US to recommit to the nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the UK.

The Trump administration announced this month it would undertake a 30-day review of the Aukus agreement – the deal struck in 2021 that would see US nuclear submarines sold to Australia, and new-design nuclear-powered Aukus submarines built in the UK and Australia.

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US supreme court clears way for Trump to deport migrants to countries not their own

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Justices lift judicial order, handing victory to US president in his aggressive pursuit of mass deportations

The US supreme court on Monday paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan.

In a brief, unsigned order, the court’s conservative supermajority paused the ruling by a Boston-based federal judge who said immigrants deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to bring claims that they would face the risk of torture, persecution or even death if removed to certain countries that have agreed to take people deported from the US.

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Canada and EU sign defence pact amid strained US relations and global instability

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Amid Trump’s disrespect of old allies, EU and Canada vow more support for Ukraine and joint work on climate crisis

Canada has signed a wide-ranging defence pact with the EU, as Donald Trump and global instability prompt traditional US allies to deepen their alliances.

Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, on Monday joined European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and head of the European Council, António Costa, in Brussels, where they signed a security and defence partnership, pledged more support for Ukraine, as well as joint work on issues from the climate crisis to artificial intelligence.

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Trump decision for US to strike Iran splits Maga supporters – US politics live

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Maga diehards caught between supporting efforts against nuclear proliferation and opposing American involvement in foreign conflicts

JD Vance has said the US is “not at war” with Iran – but is with its nuclear weapons program, holding out a position that the White House hopes to maintain over the coming days as the Iranian regime considers a retributive response to Saturday’s US strike on three of its nuclear installations.

In an interview Sunday with NBC News’ Meet the Press, the US vice-president was asked if the US was now at war with Iran.

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‘Handcuffed like we’re criminals’: Ohio teen soccer star recounts deportation

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Emerson Colindres reflects on ‘traumatizing’ ordeal after Ice sent him to Honduras despite having no criminal record

The Ohio high school graduate and soccer standout who was recently deported from the US to Honduras despite having no arrest record has described being “handcuffed like we’re some big criminals” for the entirety of his deportation flight.

“To me, it was kind of more traumatizing because I haven’t been to my birth country in years,” Emerson Colindres, 19, who was brought from Honduras to the US by his family at age eight, said to the Cincinnati news station WCPO in an interview over the weekend.

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