Interior department, which has defunded conservation organizations, claims fee hike is for conservation
The interior department announced today new “America-first” entrance fees for national parks, commemorative annual passes featuring Donald Trump and “resident-only patriotic fee-free days for 2026” including Trump’s birthday.
Starting next year, entrance fees for international visitors will more than triple.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 17% increase in military spending will add emissions equivalent to those of some entire countries
Donald Trump’s huge spending boost for the Pentagon will produce an additional 26 megatons (Mt) of planet-heating gases – on a par with the annual carbon equivalent (CO2e) emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia, new research reveals.
The Pentagon’s 2026 budget – and climate footprint – is set to surge to $1tn thanks to the president’s One Big Beautiful Act, a 17% rise on last year.
Continue reading...Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned bill’s expansion of immigration enforcement and cuts to social benefits
Democrats have erupted in a storm of outrage over the passage of Donald Trump’s budget bill, delivering scathing critiques that offered signs of the attack lines the party could wield against Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.
Party leaders released a wave of statements after the sweeping tax and spending bill’s passage on Thursday, revealing a fury that could peel paint off a brick outhouse.
Continue reading...Alexis McGill Johnson says nearly 200 health centers could close if US House passes sweeping tax-and-spending bill
Planned Parenthood stands to lose roughly $700m in federal funding if the US House passes Republicans’ massive spending-and-tax bill, the organization’s CEO said on Wednesday, amounting to what abortion rights supporters and opponents alike have called a “backdoor abortion ban”.
“We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”
Continue reading...President calls for passage of signature tax bill but it’s not yet clear whether Senate Republicans have sufficient votes
Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make the case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen whether his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.
The president’s intervention comes as the Senate majority leader, John Thune, mulls an initial vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, before a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...States argued US transportation secretary lacks authority to impose conditions on funding appropriated by Congress
A federal judge on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation grant funding.
Chief US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, granted the states’ request for an injunction barring the Department of Transportation’s policy, saying the states were likely to succeed on the merits of some or all of their claims.
Continue reading...City mayor Karen Bass joins governor Gavin Newsom and others in denouncing arrests of at least 45 people
The Department of Homeland Security conducted raids on multiple locations across Los Angeles on Friday, clashing with the crowds of people who gathered to protest and prompting widespread criticism from California leaders.
Masked agents were recorded pulling several people out of two LA-area Home Depot stores and the clothing manufacturer Ambient Apparel’s headquarters in LA’s Fashion District. Immigration advocates said the raids also included four other locations, including a doughnut shop.
Continue reading...Lawmakers still weighing whether to pass ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ at root of rift between US president and tech boss
As the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and his once top adviser, the billionaire Elon Musk, erupted into public view on Thursday, eyes turned to the Republican lawmakers still weighing whether to pass the president’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill”.
It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month, and nonpartisan analysts have found the sweeping legislation could add a whopping $2.4tn-$5tn to the $36.2tn US national debt and make deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs. Seen as an outline of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the bill would also extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.
Continue reading...With seven-day pause expiring Wednesday, Paula Xinis says administration must provide sworn testimony by May
A federal judge on Wednesday again directed the Trump administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve Kilmar Ábrego García from an El Salvador prison.
The US district judge Paula Xinis in Maryland temporarily halted her directive for information at the administration’s request last week. But with the seven-day pause expiring at 5pm, she set May deadlines for officials to provide sworn testimony on anything they have done to return Ábrego García to the US.
Continue reading...Trump scores poorly on economy and immigration as some fear he is ‘exceeding powers’ and focussed on wrong issues
Americans, including some Republicans, are losing faith in Donald Trump across a range of key issues, according to polling released this week. One survey found a majority describing the president’s second stint in the White House so far as “scary”.
Along with poor ratings on the economy and Trump’s immigration policy, a survey released on Saturday found that only 24% of Americans believe Trump has focussed on the right priorities as president.
Continue reading...Effective Monday, the agency suspends its proficiency testing program for grade ‘A’ raw milk and finished products
The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality-control program for testing fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.
The suspension is another disruption to the nation’s food-safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce.
Continue reading...Healthcare journal calls for radical change in approach, urging policymakers to invest in their communities
An academic journal may inject some optimism into US health policy – a scarce commodity amid the Trump administration’s mass layoffs, funding freezes and the ideological research reviews.
A new issue of Health Affairs Scholar argues the conversation around healthcare can change – and radically – if academics think “bigger” and policymakers invest in their communities.
Continue reading...The US president is making energy deals with Japan and Ukraine, and in Africa has even touted resurrecting coal
Donald Trump’s repeated mantra of “drill, baby, drill” demands that more oil and gas be extracted in the United States, but the president has set his sights on an even broader goal: keeping the world hooked on planet-heating fossil fuels for as long as possible.
In deals being formulated with countries such as Japan and Ukraine, Trump is using US leverage in tariffs and military aid to bolster the flow of oil and gas around the world. In Africa, his administration has even touted the resurrection of coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, to bring energy to the continent.
Continue reading...Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia
The United States has been added to the Civicus Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries that the global civil rights watchdog believes are currently experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms.
Civicus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to “strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world”, announced the inclusion of the US on the non-profit’s first watchlist of 2025 on Monday, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia.
Continue reading...No one uttered the US president’s name, and speeches bore few references to Gaza or Ukraine, focusing on the LA fires
The 97th Academy Awards had one of the longest run times for the annual show in recent history, yet the least mentions of the current political climate – with not a single person uttering the name “Donald Trump”.
While few people watch awards shows – least of all the Oscars – for political discussion, comments on world events have long been an expected part of the broadcasts. Trump himself has even weighed in on a show – at least once while it aired: last year, while campaigning for re-election, he posted on Truth Social and asked rhetorically whether there was ever a “worse host” than Jimmy Kimmel at the 2024 Oscars and criticized his opening monologue.
Anora takes home best picture Oscar
Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards
Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay
Continue reading...United States has never had national language at a federal level, with hundreds of languages spoken across country
Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would make English the official language of the US for the first time.
The order would also rescind a federal mandate issued by the former president Bill Clinton that agencies and other recipients of federal funding are required to provide language assistance to non-English speakers, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading...Order calls for ‘transformation’ in US spending on contracts, grants and loans by requiring centralized payment system
Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order meant to expand the power of Elon Musk’s governmental cost-cutting program, the so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.
The new order calls for a “transformation” in federal spending on contracts, grants and loans by requiring agencies to create a centralized system to record and justify payments, which may be made public for transparency – an initiative that would be monitored by Musk’s team.
Continue reading...Michelle King opts to retire after 30 years rather than grant request by ‘department of government efficiency’
The acting head of the Social Security Administration (SSA) left the agency after she refused to give billionaire Elon Musk and the so-called ”department of government efficiency” (Doge) access to sensitive information about beneficiaries.
The SSA processes retirement and disability benefits for more than 71 million Americans – and it uses sensitive personal information, such as banking information and tax information, to do so.
Continue reading...Defense and tech firms – including Musk’s own – await potential contracts as Doge decimates US agencies
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has vowed to oversee a radical hollowing out of government agencies, asserting this week that some should be “deleted entirely” as he defunds public programs and lays off federal workers. While the immense cuts are framed as a means of removing waste, they may also become a boon to private companies – including Musk’s own businesses – that the government increasingly relies on for many of its key initiatives.
Musk and his allies in the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), the unofficial committee acting as the operations arm of his cost-cutting efforts, have targeted a range of major government departments. They have moved to close the United States Agency for International Development, slashed the Department of Education and taken over the General Services Administration that controls federal IT structures. Doge staffers have also gained access to the treasury department, as well as set their sights on the Department of Defense, energy department, Environmental Protection Agency and at least a dozen others.
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