分类： politics

In a pivotal legislative vote held on Friday, the U.S. Senate has passed a $70 billion funding package to advance former President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement agenda, capping off a full day of fractious amendment votes that laid bare deep internal divisions within the Republican Party over several of the Trump’s most controversial policy proposals.

The legislation would allocate sustained funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Border Patrol for the remainder of Trump’s current term, delivering the Republican leader a long-sought major victory on one of his signature policy issues. This outcome follows months of bitter partisan conflict over the future direction of U.S. immigration enforcement. Next, the bill will move to the House of Representatives, where top Republican leaders are pushing to hold an early vote next week to finalize the measure and send it to Trump’s desk for signature.

Friday’s vote comes in the wake of a record-breaking partial shutdown of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year. That shutdown was triggered when Democrats refused to support new immigration enforcement funding without placing restrictions on controversial tactics, including immigration raids in sensitive community locations and the use of unmarked masks by enforcement officers. Republicans rejected these Democratic demands, opting instead to advance the ICE and Border Patrol funding through the fast-track budget reconciliation process, a procedural rule that allows the party to bypass Democratic opposition as long as their own caucus remains unified.

The final vote followed an hours-long, chaotic amendment process known on Capitol Hill as a “vote-a-rama,” which permits lawmakers to force roll call votes on politically charged issues ahead of the final up-or-down vote on the full bill. For Trump, the process brought renewed public scrutiny to controversial proposals that have already sparked unease among some members of his own party. These included a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” compensation fund for allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by federal law enforcement, and a $1 billion earmark for security upgrades at a planned private White House ballroom. While the $1 billion ballroom funding was ultimately stripped from the final immigration bill, both proposals have become flashpoints for broader Republican anxiety about defending Trump’s policy priorities ahead of upcoming midterm elections, where voter anger over the rising cost of living is expected to dominate the campaign landscape.

The bill’s passage had already been delayed for weeks after a rebellion within the Senate Republican caucus over the Justice Department’s proposed $1.8 billion anti-weaponization compensation package. Critics across the political spectrum have slammed the fund as an unaccountable “slush fund” that could potentially divert taxpayer money to people convicted of crimes related to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers earlier this week that the Trump administration would not move forward with implementing the fund. Despite this public statement, Trump himself has continued to praise the proposal, calling it “beautiful” and saying he would need to “ask the lawyers” to confirm whether the plan was fully scrapped or just temporarily paused.

This deliberate ambiguity from the president pushed a bloc of Senate Republicans to support a Democratic amendment that would codify the fund’s elimination into law. “When you’re explaining, you’re losing. There’s no way to explain the $1.776 billion fund. So the only way you can explain it is explain that you got rid of it,” North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis told reporters Friday. While the string of amendment votes ultimately failed to derail Trump’s broader immigration agenda, the outcomes exposed clear limits to Republican party discipline: multiple GOP senators defected from the party line on votes targeting the anti-weaponization fund, the scrapped ballroom security funding, and Trump’s recent move to install a loyalist housing official to lead the U.S. intelligence community.

For their part, Democrats leveraged the vote-a-rama process to highlight their policy priorities, introducing amendments that would redirect immigration enforcement funding toward affordable housing and other programs aimed at easing household cost burdens. Democrats argued that Republicans were prioritizing Trump’s mass deportation agenda over addressing the economic struggles of American voters. In a separate, high-profile rebuke of Trump’s foreign policy, several Senate Republicans joined Democrats to back an amendment that would bypass House Republican leadership and hold a vote on new sanctions targeting Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, paired with $8 billion in new military financing loans for Kyiv.

Republican supporters of the immigration funding bill pushed back against criticism, arguing that the new allocation was necessary to resolve the ongoing uncertainty around immigration enforcement funding left unresolved by the earlier DHS shutdown. The temporary stopgap funding measure that ended the earlier shutdown provided funding for most DHS agencies through September 30, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and the U.S. Secret Service. However, it deliberately excluded funding for ICE and Border Patrol, setting the stage for the separate partisan battle that concluded with Friday’s Senate vote.

Friday’s outcome delivers Trump a major legislative win on his core immigration pledge, while simultaneously highlighting a persistent structural challenge for Republican congressional leaders: even with full control of both chambers of Congress, they must constantly navigate internal resistance to the political baggage tied to many of the president’s most divisive priorities.

A high-profile legal dispute between award-winning British-Australian pianist Jayson Gillham and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) has hit a key juncture, with the presiding judge urging both parties to negotiate a private resolution rather than waiting for a formal judicial ruling. The three-week trial concluded last Friday, and Justice Graeme Hill opted to adjourn the case to give the two sides additional time to reach a negotiated settlement.

The conflict stems from a brief on-stage statement Gillham delivered during an August 11, 2024, Melbourne performance. In his remarks, Gillham noted that more than 100 Palestinian journalists had been killed by Israeli forces since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, adding that many of these deaths constituted targeted assassinations of media workers who were clearly identified as press, traveling in marked vehicles or wearing identifiable press jackets. Gillham told the 150-person audience that the deliberate killing of journalists qualifies as a war crime under international law, carried out to suppress the documentation and public dissemination of war crimes to the global public.

Independent press freedom advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists has since updated its tally, confirming that at least 206 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Three audience members submitted formal complaints about Gillham’s comments, prompting MSO leadership to cancel a subsequent performance Gillham was scheduled to give just four days later, on August 15, 2024. The cancellation triggered more than 500 new complaints against the orchestra, and MSO ultimately canceled the entire concert over unsubstantiated public safety concerns.

The orchestra later acknowledged it made an error in canceling Gillham’s performance and stated it was working to reschedule the show. But Gillham argues the organization rejected all of his reasonable proposals to remedy the situation, leading the pianist to file a workplace discrimination lawsuit against MSO in late 2024. At the time of the cancellation, MSO said in a public statement to patrons that Gillham’s unsolicited remarks caught the organization off guard and put it in an untenable position, adding that the orchestra does not permit its stages to be used as platforms for personal political commentary.

Gillham’s legal team argues that his on-stage statement fell under his protected workplace right to express political beliefs, a right enshrined in anti-discrimination law in the Australian state of Victoria. Under Victorian law, employers are prohibited from retaliating against or mistreating workers for their legally held political convictions. During the trial, Gillham told the court that after the initial cancellation and public backlash, MSO offered to reinstate his performance only on the condition that he refrain from making any political comments on stage. In her closing arguments, Gillham’s barrister Sheryn Omeri called MSO’s conditional offer of reinstatement insulting.

Representing the orchestra, MSO’s barrister Justin Bourke KC framed the organization’s decision as a reasonable response to an extremely high-pressure situation. “You can’t ignore that it was a highly controversial statement made in a setting where this was the biggest issue in the world,” Bourke told the court.

Nearly two dozen witnesses testified during the three-week trial, including Gillham himself and multiple former senior MSO executives. Justice Hill noted that two previous attempts at an out-of-court settlement between the two parties had already failed. While the judge said he typically issues rulings relatively quickly after a trial concludes, he emphasized that this complex, high-stakes case is not an ordinary matter. “I’m afraid it might take me some time to go through everything and work out the right answer,” the justice said. Adjourning the case, he explained that the additional time would give both parties the space to reconsider a negotiated settlement, rather than forcing the court to hand down a binding ruling that could leave one side deeply unsatisfied.

A peculiar security lapse at an Australian women’s prison has sparked fierce parliamentary scrutiny over the state of correctional facility safety in South Australia, after an inmate walked away from a minimum-security prerelease unit and returned two hours later with a hidden cache of alcoholic beverages.

The unusual incident unfolded last week at the Adelaide Women’s Prison, where the unidentified prisoner left the facility’s prerelease center without any escort or authorization. She remained outside correctional custody for two full hours before voluntarily returning to the site—smuggling in multiple bottles of alcohol hidden on her person.

The breach came to a head on Thursday, when Correctional Services Minister Michael Brown faced intense questioning from parliamentary members over the mishap, an event that has reignited widespread public debate about whether the state’s prison system can guarantee adequate safety for both the public and people incarcerated within the system.

While Brown acknowledged that the unapproved absence of an incarcerated person is a serious issue that demands full investigation, he pushed back against growing criticism that the incident points to systemic failure across South Australia’s correctional network. He told parliament the security breach was a single, isolated case, not evidence that all state prisons are fundamentally insecure.

“I can give a full assurance to the people of South Australia that our correctional service delivers complete protection to the broader community,” Brown stated in his address. “I am not seeking to downplay the severity of what happened—any unapproved absence from a correctional facility is a problem, which is exactly why a formal review is already underway. At the same time, we must keep this incident in context: this was an individual from a minimum-security prerelease center who was only absent for two hours. There is no need to exaggerate the situation and stoke unnecessary fear among community members.”

But opposition leaders have rejected the minister’s framing, warning that the lapse exposes dangerous gaps in facility security. Opposition correctional services spokesman Tim Whetstone questioned what could have happened if the inmate had chosen to smuggle in something far more dangerous than alcohol. “What protocols are in place to stop an inmate from sneaking back into the facility with a weapon?” Whetstone asked, adding that this incident is far from an isolated one.

“This is not the first time a prisoner has managed to leave custody without permission,” he noted. “By my count, this is the second such incident in just six months.”

In response to opposition questions, Brown reaffirmed that appropriate security measures are already in place across all state correctional facilities, and the ongoing review will identify any adjustments needed to prevent similar lapses from occurring in the future.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, Vladimir Putin is set to deliver a keynote address Friday at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the country’s premier annual investment gathering, long nicknamed “Russia’s Davos.” His appearance comes amid mounting economic headwinds and a fresh wave of brazen Ukrainian drone strikes that have underscored the Kremlin’s ongoing security vulnerabilities even on home soil.

The cumulative costs of the war have pushed Russia’s economy into its most challenging stretch since the 2022 invasion. Official data shows gross domestic product contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2025, marking the first quarterly decline in three years. In the first four months of 2025, the federal government recorded an $80 billion budget deficit, equal to 2.5% of full-year GDP and already exceeding the deficit target set for the entire 12-month period.

Inflation has spiked across consumer goods, while the central bank has lifted borrowing costs to a two-decade high to cool price growth. Tax increases have squeezed households and businesses alike, widespread labor shortages have disrupted production lines across multiple sectors, and hundreds of businesses have been forced to cease operations. Compounding these pressures, intensifying Ukrainian strikes on key Russian energy infrastructure — including oil depots, refineries and export hubs — have put Moscow’s single largest source of state revenue at growing risk. In a strike loaded with symbolic significance, a Ukrainian drone hit an industrial facility in Saint Petersburg earlier this week as forum delegates began arriving, leaving a thick plume of black smoke visible to assembled dignitaries.

Alexander Kolyandr, a leading Russian economy expert based in London, told Agence France-Presse ahead of Putin’s address that the Russian economy has now entered a period of prolonged stagnation. “I don’t see the Russian economy collapsing into the chaos of the 1990s or anything similar — it’s just a slow degradation of everything,” he explained.

Once a magnet for Western investors eager to capitalize on Russia’s energy and natural resource wealth in the early years of Putin’s presidency, SPIEF has been fundamentally transformed by the war and Western sanctions. Where foreign business leaders once mixed with Russian political and business elites to strike multi-billion dollar deals, today the forum features public displays of military drones and machine guns, and top-tier attendees now come almost exclusively from neutral and allied nations such as China and Saudi Arabia. Attendees from the United States and Europe are extremely rare, with the small Western contingent led by high-profile pro-Putin figures: American right-wing commentator Candace Owens, former Hollywood actor and long-time Putin ally Steven Seagal, and members of parliament from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Putin has used past SPIEF addresses to push back against claims of economic collapse, argue that Western sanctions backfire by hurting European and North American economies more than Russia, and reassure the public that the state can afford the massive costs of its military operation while keeping domestic life stable. Speaking to reporters Thursday, he pushed back on narratives of imminent economic crisis, quoting Mark Twain’s famous quip: “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

But far from the forum’s keynote stage, small and medium-sized business owners across Russia report growing struggles that threaten their survival. Svetlana, a 40-year-old owner of a maternity and children’s apparel brand in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk, told AFP her business is on the brink of closure. “People are having fewer children, they’re tightening their belts, and our operating costs keep going up,” she explained. Government-mandated internet blackouts, implemented to disrupt Ukrainian drone strike coordination, have repeatedly knocked out her card payment terminals, leaving her unable to serve many customers. “We are going back to life 18 years ago, when there was no internet or social media,” she said. “I’m tired of worrying about fines under new laws and the endless stream of new requirements that keep popping up.”

Vera, a 42-year-old beauty salon owner in the Moscow region, said her supply costs have doubled so far this year. Having survived a near-collapse of her business in 2022, however, she remains optimistic she can weather the current challenges, calling ongoing difficulties “just unpleasantries.”

Expert Kolyandr warned that the current trajectory of slow economic degradation will become irreversible unless the Kremlin makes fundamental political changes, including ending the war in Ukraine and restructuring the country’s growth model. Since the invasion began, Russia has operated a two-tier economy, prioritizing resources for the state-dominated defense sector above all other civilian industries. While higher global oil prices driven by regional tensions following the Iran war have boosted energy revenues, Kolyandr noted the increase has not been large enough to close the country’s growing budget gap. Persistent labor shortages have also worsened, with an estimated 30,000 working-age men conscripted into the military each month to support the war effort.

“There is no good solution,” Kolyandr said. “They will continue to kick the can for as long as possible.”

An unprecedented moment in U.S. political and sports history is set to unfold on June 14, when a UFC pay-per-view event will be hosted on the South Lawn of the White House — the same day former President Donald Trump celebrates his 80th birthday. What was expected to be a straightforward celebration of Trump’s deep ties to the wildly popular mixed martial arts world has instead devolved into open infighting, with prominent fighters and key MMA voices raising loud objections over the event’s logistics, cost, and political implications, just weeks before the first step into the Octagon.

Colombia’s sitting President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left-wing head of state who is constitutionally ineligible to seek reelection, has launched a scathing rebuke of former US President Donald Trump over his intervention in Colombia’s upcoming presidential runoff. Petro claims Washington has broken a previous non-interference agreement by backing a hard-right candidate tied to the same drug trafficking networks the US claims to fight.

The controversy erupted after Trump threw his full weight behind Abelardo de la Espriella, a 47-year-old conservative lawyer who rose to shock wealth by representing drug-trafficking linked paramilitaries, white-collar fraudsters and high-profile soccer athletes. De la Espriella pulled off an unexpected upset in Sunday’s first-round voting, defeating leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda – a close ally of Petro and architect of the administration’s landmark peace strategy – setting the stage for a head-to-head runoff on June 21.

In an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse held at the Colombian presidential palace, Petro did not mince words about the US endorsement. “Their allies in Colombia come from the narco-paramilitary regime; they are genocidal and drug traffickers,” he stated, speaking as he sampled chocolate produced by former coca farmers who transitioned to legal cocoa cultivation under his administration’s alternative development program.

Trump’s move to back de la Espriella marks the latest in a pattern of the former US president interfering in Latin American elections, consistently throwing his support behind hardline right-wing candidates who take aggressive stances on crime and migration, while painting left-wing opponents as dangerous Marxists. De la Espriella has already pledged to deepen US-Colombia bilateral ties “like never before” should he win the runoff, and counts hardline former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe among his most powerful backers. Uribe has long faced allegations of colluding with paramilitary groups responsible for the mass murder of thousands of civilians during the bloodiest decades of Colombia’s 60-plus year internal conflict.

For Petro and his ally Cepeda, these ties are not just political coincidence. Both leaders have repeatedly accused paramilitary forces of carrying out a systematic “genocide” of left-wing political organizers and leaders, a list that includes Cepeda’s own father – a communist senator assassinated in 1994.

In response, the Colombian political right and Trump’s circle have pushed back against Petro, claiming he has taken an overly soft stance on remaining left-wing guerrilla groups, many of which still operate outside state control and fund their activities through cocaine trafficking. Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, a fact that has long been a flashpoint in bilateral relations between Bogota and Washington.

Tensions between Petro and Trump run deep: Last year, the former US president imposed sanctions on Petro, labeling him a “drug leader” over his failure to curb rising cocaine production and trafficking. The pair have also clashed repeatedly over Trump’s hardline migrant deportation policies and his campaign of lethal airstrikes targeting suspected drug trafficking vessels off Latin America’s coasts. The two leaders seemingly de-escalated these tensions during a February meeting at the White House, where Petro says the pair agreed the US would not interfere in Colombia’s 2025 election. Trump’s recent endorsement, Petro argues, is a clear violation of that pact.

“What they are implementing is an ideological policy that divides the world between those who think like them and those of us who don’t,” Petro added, expressing deep regret that “figures and governments who want to fight drug trafficking are actually helping to bring crime to political power in Colombia.”

The Colombian presidential election is unfolding against a backdrop of rising security instability: the country is currently facing the worst wave of political and criminal violence since the 2016 landmark peace deal between the state and former Marxist rebel group FARC. While much of Colombia has seen economic and social progress in the decade since the agreement, large swathes of rural territory remain under the control of armed factions fighting for control of cocaine smuggling routes, illegal gold mining operations and extortion rackets.

The two runoff candidates represent starkly different ideological paths for Colombia’s future: De la Espriella has rejected Petro’s signature “total peace” policy of negotiated talks with remaining armed groups, vowing instead to crush all insurgent and criminal factions through full-scale military force. Cepeda, by contrast, who helped negotiate the 2016 FARC peace deal, has pledged to continue prioritizing dialogue, economic development and social investment in regions long controlled by armed groups.