Global Pulse

标签： North America

北美洲

  • Trump hits back at ‘unpatriotic’ vote after House rebukes him over Iran

    Trump hits back at ‘unpatriotic’ vote after House rebukes him over Iran

    In a move that deepens domestic political tension over the United States’ ongoing conflict in Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a war powers resolution Wednesday that aims to curb President Donald Trump’s authority to launch further military action against Tehran. The narrow 215-208 vote marked the fourth time the chamber has attempted to rein in the commander-in-chief’s war-making authority amid rising public opposition to the conflict, and it exposed fresh rifts within Trump’s own Republican Party.

    Four Republican House members broke ranks to side with a unified Democratic caucus to advance the measure: Thomas Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett, and Warren Davidson. In a rare shift, Democratic Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who had rejected similar resolutions in the past, also backed the bill. For Barrett, a Michigan Republican, the vote aligned with a core constitutional principle. “Congress alone declares war, that’s something certainly we need to be protective of,” he told reporters. When asked if he feared political retaliation from Trump for his defection, Barrett added he stood by his conscience: “I vote my conscience for what I think is right and willing to accept that.”

    The resolution itself is framed as a concurrent resolution, meaning that if it passes the Republican-controlled Senate, it would not require Trump’s signature to take effect — though legal scholars widely expect it would face immediate court challenges from the executive branch. The White House has already rejected the measure outright, dismissing it as an unconstitutional overreach that encroaches on the president’s constitutional authority as head of the executive branch and commander of the armed forces. To date, it remains unclear how much enforceable legal weight the resolution would carry even if approved by the upper chamber.

    A similar resolution advanced through Senate procedural steps in May, but Senate leadership has not yet scheduled a full floor vote on the measure. Even if it fails to advance, political analysts frame the House vote as a significant symbolic marker of growing bipartisan unease with the Iran conflict, which has coincided with a sharp spike in global gasoline prices that has eroded public support for the administration’s foreign policy. Growing public opposition to the prolonged military engagement has put increasing pressure on Trump to wrap up negotiations to end the conflict, a backdrop that the president himself highlighted in his rebuke of the vote.

    Early Thursday, Trump lashed out at lawmakers who supported the resolution in a post on his Truth Social platform, labeling the vote “meaningless” and the coalition behind it “unpatriotic.” The vote came “right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing?” He went on to attack Democrats as being driven by partisan animosity, claiming “The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome. They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories.” Turning back to the four defecting Republicans, Trump did not mince words: “The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story – They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

    This latest intraparty split comes just one week after a conservative rebellion in Congress forced the Trump administration to scrap a planned $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund earmarked for political allies, highlighting the persistent fragmentation within the GOP even as the party controls both the White House and the Senate. While the resolution is widely seen as largely symbolic at this stage, its passage underscores the growing political costs of the Iran conflict for the Trump administration as it pushes to finalize a negotiated exit.

  • Heat experts warn Fifa of bottle ban health risk

    Heat experts warn Fifa of bottle ban health risk

    Just seven days before the 2026 Fifa World Cup kicks off on June 11, football’s global governing body has triggered widespread criticism with a sudden, late reversal of its stadium policy that prohibits fans from bringing reusable water bottles into match venues, a move public health and heat experts warn puts spectator well-being at severe risk amid forecast extreme tournament temperatures.

    The original, publicly released stadium code of conduct explicitly permitted empty, transparent reusable plastic bottles of up to one liter to be brought inside venues. In its policy update, Fifa framed the new blanket ban – which also covers personal cups, jars and cans – as a safety measure to reduce the risk of injury from thrown projectiles. “Fifa is committed to protecting the health and safety of all players, referees, fans, volunteers, and staff,” the organization said in a formal statement. It added that spectators would still be able to purchase water inside stadiums, with prices capped to match those charged at other major events held at the same venues, and that existing heat mitigation infrastructure, including misting stations, cooling tents, hydration points and portable fans across stadium grounds, would remain in place to manage high temperatures. To protect player welfare, Fifa has also already added one three-minute hydration break per half to all match schedules.

    But heat and health specialists have roundly condemned the last-minute U-turn, warning it exacerbates already documented gaps in the tournament’s heat safety planning. Back in May, a group of leading scientists issued an open letter warning that existing heat safety measures were inadequate, as forecast temperatures at 14 of the 16 host venues will exceed the threshold for dangerous heat exposure.

    Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney who was one of the signatories of the May open letter, told reporters his greatest concern now centers on spectator rather than athlete welfare. “If you look at the athlete population, all of them are very fit,” Jay explained. “Whereas if you think about the spectators, you’ve got a broad range of different people that will be attending, from young kids to elderly people, people with chronic diseases, people taking different types of medications – all of which results in different levels of heat sensitivity. Your average spectator is probably going to be less resilient to the heat than these highly-conditioned professional athletes.”

    Jay added that many fans will already face accumulating heat exposure during their travel to stadiums, leaving them dehydrated even before they enter the venue. Once inside, packed seating, direct sunlight, high humidity and limited airflow can combine to create dangerous levels of heat stress that the body struggles to regulate. “Unless the cooling controls are really successful, I would imagine this decision [to ban water bottles in stadiums] will clearly heighten the risk of heat-related health incidents,” he warned.

    Dr Theodore Keeping, a researcher at Imperial College London and lead author of a World Weather Attribution study focused on heat safety at the 2026 World Cup, emphasized that accessible hydration is the most basic foundational protection against extreme heat. “Allowing fair and equitable access to hydration is a basic first defence against the extreme heat risks climate change is bringing to this World Cup,” Keeping said.

    Critics from fan groups and climate advocacy organizations have also raised sharp concerns about the policy change. The Free Lions England supporters’ group described the ban as a “strange, late change”, noting that it directly contradicts prior assurances Fifa gave to fan representatives that personal reusable bottles would be permitted. “In all of our discussions, free water availability in stadiums was a key one and we were assured by Fifa that this would be the case and that fans will have the ability to bring their own water bottle,” the group said in a statement posted to X. “Naturally, the immediate thought from supporters is this is just the latest money-grab. For how hot the stadiums will be, many in open air, just let fans bring a bottle if they want. We hope the water fountains in stadiums will still be free, hopefully you aren’t charged in the queue!”

    Andrew Simms, from the UK-based New Weather Institute, argued the ban is the latest in a pattern of reckless decision-making from Fifa that ignores basic duties of care to spectators, amid growing climate risks. “Is Fifa climate-trolling the game it’s meant to protect?” Simms said. “It is already staging the most polluting World Cup ever, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest climate-polluting oil companies, and has heat safety protocols heavily criticised by world leading health experts. Now making it even more difficult for fans to stay safe in a competition vulnerable to global heating seems to be a reckless rejection of Fifa’s duty of care.”

    The policy change arrives amid a broader wave of fan anger over the 2026 tournament, with spectators already complaining about what they describe as “extortionate” ticket prices and inflated public transport fares for traveling to matches. It is not the first time Fifa has implemented a reusable bottle ban at a World Cup – spectators were also barred from bringing personal bottles into venues during the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

  • Uneasy neighbours: Can three World Cup hosts put differences aside for a month?

    Uneasy neighbours: Can three World Cup hosts put differences aside for a month?

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup, the first men’s edition of the global tournament to be co-hosted across three separate nations, faces an unprecedented set of political and logistical challenges, as simmering tensions between the United States, Canada, and Mexico threaten to overshadow the historic continental sporting event. When the three national leaders joined FIFA President Gianni Infantino for the official tournament draw in Washington D.C. last December, the gathering was marked by friendly photo opportunities and public displays of unity. But behind the polished optics, long-running frictions over trade, immigration, security, and geopolitical strategy have created a fragile foundation for the 39-day cross-border competition, which will spread across 16 host cities spanning the entire North American continent.

  • Trump to nominate Blanche for attorney general on permanent basis

    Trump to nominate Blanche for attorney general on permanent basis

    In a major announcement for the U.S. Department of Justice’s leadership, former president and current U.S. President Donald Trump has revealed plans to formally nominate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to hold the role permanently, capping a rapid climb for one of Trump’s closest and most trusted legal allies.

    If the U.S. Senate votes to confirm Blanche’s appointment, the president’s one-time personal lawyer will step into the nation’s top law enforcement position on a permanent basis, leading the entire DOJ as the administration’s chief federal prosecutor.

    Blanche first stepped into the acting attorney general role in early April, immediately after Trump removed former Attorney General Pam Bondi from the post. A long-time loyal ally of the president, Blanche has spent years defending Trump across multiple high-stakes legal cases. Most notably, he led Trump’s defense during his federal prosecution over allegations he improperly retained classified national security documents following the end of his first presidential term, and also represented Trump amid proceedings tied to allegations of attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Both of those cases were ultimately dismissed after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, in line with longstanding DOJ policy that prohibits prosecuting sitting sitting presidents.

    Details of the upcoming nomination were first shared publicly in a video posted late Wednesday by Dan Scavino, Deputy White House Chief of Staff. In the recording, Trump confirmed he would submit the nomination to the Senate “tomorrow” and predicted that the confirmation process would move “very quickly.” Just days earlier, Trump voiced public praise for Blanche during an appearance on the Pod Force One podcast, calling Blanche a skilled legal professional and noting that “Todd’s doing a very good job at DOJ.”

    In recent weeks, Blanche has found himself at the center of a major policy controversy at the DOJ, after the department pushed to create a new $1.8 billion (equivalent to £1.3 billion) “anti-weaponisation fund” designed to compensate individuals who claim they were harmed by overreach from federal government agencies. The proposal faced bipartisan pushback, with multiple Republican lawmakers joining opposition Democrats to oppose the plan. Blanche suffered a major setback when a federal judge ordered the plan paused to allow ongoing legal challenges to proceed. Appearing before Congress for a hearing Tuesday, Blanche confirmed the proposal had been abandoned entirely, stating clearly: “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period.”

    A 51-year-old Colorado native, Blanche earned his undergraduate degree from American University in Washington, D.C., before graduating with a law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 2003. He spent the majority of his early legal career as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, before moving into private practice at two prominent national law firms, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

    Before taking over as acting attorney general, Blanche served as deputy attorney general, where he worked alongside Bondi on the DOJ’s release of previously sealed documents connected to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In July of this year, Blanche conducted a personal interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s long-time associate who is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for her role in Epstein’s crimes. Beyond his law enforcement roles, Blanche has also previously served as acting Librarian of Congress.

    Following his appointment as acting attorney general, Blanche pushed back against media reports that claimed Bondi’s removal was tied to her handling of the Epstein document release. Since leaving the DOJ, Bondi has announced she will join the White House’s new AI advisory panel, the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

    The upcoming Senate confirmation process for Blanche is expected to draw intense scrutiny from lawmakers, given his long history of personal and political loyalty to Trump, as well as his recent handling of the controversial anti-weaponisation fund proposal.

  • Knicks lead NBA Finals after late run beats Spurs

    Knicks lead NBA Finals after late run beats Spurs

    The opening clash of the 2026 NBA Finals delivered a dramatic turnaround for the ages, as the New York Knicks erased a 14-point third-quarter deficit to secure a 105-95 road win over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday.

    Led by veteran floor general Jalen Brunson, who poured in 13 of his game-high 30 points in the final frame, the Knicks closed out the contest with an unanswered 11-point run over the closing two minutes to pull away from the hosts. The victory marked New York’s 12th consecutive postseason win, tying the record for the second-longest winning streak in NBA playoff history — a mark that was previously set by the 1999 Spurs, the last team to defeat the Knicks in an NBA Finals matchup.

    This comeback is far from an anomaly for the 2023-2024 Knicks: Game 1 marked the fourth time this postseason that the team has rallied from a double-digit halftime deficit to claim victory. In the Eastern Conference Finals opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, New York even overcame an even larger 22-point hole to kickstart their run to the Finals.

    Karl-Anthony Towns, the 2015 first overall pick who notched a double-double of 18 points and 12 rebounds in Game 1, credited New York’s passionate fanbase and the iconic grit of the city for the team’s repeated ability to fight back from big deficits. “It’s something that’s in the city, you feel that energy in the city. The grit, the grind, the hard work you’ve got to put in to make it in the city. I think we reflect our fans and their lifestyles and what it takes to make it in New York City, when we step on that court with the Knicks jersey,” Towns told reporters postgame.

    For the Spurs, the night was marked by an uncharacteristically off performance from generational rookie star Victor Wembanyama. While Wembanyama led the team in scoring with 21 points, he connected on just 6 of his 21 field goal attempts, struggling to find his rhythm against New York’s aggressive interior defense. The 7-foot-4 phenom remained unshaken by the underwhelming outing, noting his confidence in bouncing back in the next game. “We’ve been down in a series before – never in the Finals – but I’m not kicking myself about anything. I was bad, it’s not more complicated than that. I’m not worried in the slightest,” Wembanyama said.

    The best-of-seven championship series will remain in San Antonio for Game 2 on Friday, before the teams travel to New York to face off at Madison Square Garden for Game 3 on Monday. The Knicks are currently vying for their first NBA championship title in more than five decades, with their last title win coming all the way back in 1973.

  • Flesh-eating screwworm arrives in US with first case detected in Texas cattle

    Flesh-eating screwworm arrives in US with first case detected in Texas cattle

    After a 60-year absence of the parasitic New World Screwworm (NWS) from United States territory, federal agricultural officials have confirmed that the flesh-eating parasite has been detected in a Texas calf, marking the first confirmed U.S. case since 1966. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the confirmation in an official briefing Wednesday evening, noting that the parasite has been steadily spreading northward across Mexico over the past 12 months before crossing the southern border.

    Preventive work to slow the parasite’s advance into the U.S. has been ongoing for years, as public and agricultural health officials monitored rising case counts across Central America and Mexico. The infected calf, a three-week-old animal, was found in La Pryor, Texas, a small community located roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border. The parasitic larvae were discovered in the calf’s umbilical region, where an open wound provided a prime egg-laying site for adult female screwworm flies.

    New World Screwworm is a dangerous parasitic species that preys exclusively on warm-blooded hosts. Adult females lay their clutches of eggs in open wounds or moist mucous membranes of living animals. Once the eggs hatch, hundreds of voracious larvae use their sharp mouthparts to burrow deep into the host’s living flesh to feed. If the infestation is left untreated, it almost always results in the death of the host. While NWS can also infest humans and domestic pets, public health officials emphasize that the risk of human infection remains very low, and confirmed human cases are extremely rare. The parasite also does not pose any threat to beef or livestock food safety, authorities confirmed.

    For U.S. cattle ranchers, a widespread outbreak of NWS carries significant economic risk: an uncontrolled spread would likely reduce national cattle herds, cut overall beef production, and push retail beef prices higher for American consumers. In response to the first confirmed case, state and federal agricultural authorities have moved quickly to contain the parasite. A 12.4-mile (20-kilometer) detection and quarantine zone has been established around the site of the infection, aimed at stopping the movement of infested animals — the most common vector for NWS spread.

    Officials are also moving forward with a longstanding planned intervention: releasing millions of sterile male screwworm flies into the affected zone. Because female screwworm flies only mate once during their lifespan, any mating with a sterile male will result in unfertilized eggs that never hatch, gradually reducing the local population over time.

    USDA officials noted that years of preventive preparation have already delayed the parasite’s arrival in the U.S. by a full year. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins moved quickly to reassure livestock producers, confirming that USDA response teams have already deployed to South Texas to support containment and monitoring operations, and urging all livestock owners across the region to remain vigilant for signs of infection.

    Despite the federal government’s response, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has publicly criticized the federal approach, arguing that authorities have moved too slowly to address the threat. Miller told Reuters that the USDA has relied exclusively on the sterile fly release strategy, a partial solution that takes years to reach full effectiveness, rather than deploying every available prevention and containment tool immediately. The dispute highlights the high stakes of containing what is widely considered one of the most dangerous livestock parasites in the Western Hemisphere.

  • US House votes to rein in Trump’s war powers in rebuke over Iran

    US House votes to rein in Trump’s war powers in rebuke over Iran

    In a historic bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s military engagement in Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a resolution designed to block President Donald Trump from launching additional offensive military action against Tehran. The final vote tally stood at 215 in favor to 208 against, with four House Republicans breaking ranks with their party leadership to side with a unified Democratic caucus in passing the measure.

    This vote marks the fourth formal attempt by the House to curtail the president’s war-making authority in Iran, a conflict critics argue has proceeded without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war. The House initiative now moves to the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate for consideration, where its path forward remains uncertain. Even if the resolution clears the full Senate, political observers widely note it is unlikely to result in a full halt to U.S. military operations against Iran.

    The Senate previously advanced a nearly identical resolution in May, the first such measure to overcome procedural hurdles after seven failed attempts, but it has not yet been scheduled for a full floor vote. Wednesday’s vote comes amid growing public divisions within the Republican Party over Trump’s foreign policy, just one week after a conservative rebellion in Congress forced the White House to scrap a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund earmarked for political allies.

    The four Republican lawmakers who backed the resolution are Thomas Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett, and Warren Davidson. Notably, Democratic Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who had opposed earlier iterations of similar measures, also switched his position to support the bill this round. Speaking after the vote, Michigan Republican Tom Barrett emphasized the constitutional principle underpinning his decision, noting “Congress alone declares war, that’s something certainly we need to be protective of.” When asked if he feared political retribution from Trump for his dissenting vote, Barrett added, “I vote my conscience for what I think is right and willing to accept that.”

    House Foreign Affairs Committee leading Democrat Gregory Meeks, who co-sponsored the resolution, framed the outcome as a landmark bipartisan push to end what he called Trump’s “illegal and costly war in Iran.” Meeks argued that the president has failed to deliver on the war’s stated public goals, while driving up domestic U.S. fuel prices and complicating diplomatic efforts to resolve tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. “The passage of this [measure] today signals a significant turning point: more and more Republicans are listening to their constituents who do not want another open-ended war in the Middle East,” Meeks said.

    The current conflict between the U.S., Iran, and regional allies began in late February, when the U.S. and Israel launched joint airstrikes against Iranian targets. Iran retaliated with attacks on Israel and U.S.-partnered states in the Persian Gulf, and effectively shut down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global shipping chokepoint that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply. In April, the U.S. announced a full naval blockade of commercial traffic moving to and from Iran’s coast, before the two sides reached an initial ceasefire agreement on April 8.

    Despite the ceasefire, intermittent hostilities have continued in recent weeks: the U.S. has carried out new strikes on Iranian targets, while Tehran has responded with attacks on Kuwait, a major U.S. ally in the region. Ahead of Wednesday’s House vote, Trump told reporters at the White House that peace negotiations to end the conflict were progressing “very well,” and suggested a final deal could be completed as early as the same weekend. “We hit them pretty hard the night before, and actually last night,” Trump said, referencing recent U.S. strikes. “Some people would say they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action for a different reason, so they were reciprocating.”

    The president added that most senior members of his administration support reaching a negotiated end to the conflict “without killing everybody.” “In theory they’re pretty close to signing a paper, we’ve actually gotten along with them very well,” Trump said.

  • SpaceX says it’s worth $1.75tn as it nears stock market debut

    SpaceX says it’s worth $1.75tn as it nears stock market debut

    As one of the most anticipated initial public offerings in modern stock market history approaches, Elon Musk’s aerospace and technology conglomerate SpaceX has shaken up global capital markets with an unusually early valuation that far outpaces market expectations. Ahead of its Nasdaq debut scheduled for June 12, the company filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday proposing an offering price of $135 per share, pushing its self-assessed valuation to roughly $1.75 trillion — a 40% jump from its $1.25 trillion private market valuation earlier this year.

    The early release of a proposed share price is a break from longstanding IPO market norms. Publicly traded companies almost always disclose their estimated offering price only 24 hours before trading begins, making SpaceX’s timeline one of the earliest public price estimates in IPO history. If the offering closes successfully at or above the $135 per share target, the IPO will raise $75 billion for the company — marking the largest capital raise ever for a U.S. public listing, and catapulting SpaceX straight into the ranks of the world’s most valuable publicly traded companies.

    For Musk, the long-time leader and majority stakeholder of SpaceX, the successful listing could bring a historic milestone: with controlling ownership of more than 80% of SpaceX’s outstanding stock, the tech entrepreneur would immediately become the world’s first trillionaire, surpassing every other individual on the planet to claim the title of the world’s wealthiest person. But analysts are quick to note that this outcome is far from guaranteed.

    Capital markets research from Dealogic shows that nearly half of all companies that have gone public over the past 30 years have seen their market value drop below their initial offering price once trading opens. Market observers warn that SpaceX’s proposed valuation comes in at an extremely premium pricing compared to its current financial performance. Samuel Kerr, head of equity capital markets research at Mergermarket, pointed out that SpaceX’s price-to-sales ratio, based on its proposed valuation, outpaces that of every major company in the so-called “Magnificent 7” — the group of top tech giants that includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, and even Musk’s own electric vehicle company Tesla.

    “There is no doubt the valuation is incredibly rich,” Kerr noted. However, he added that the company’s valuation is rooted in projected future growth rather than current profitability, which may lead growth-focused investors to overlook its current red ink. Official financial disclosures show that SpaceX recorded $18.6 billion in total revenue in 2025, but posted a net loss of $4.9 billion for the year. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the company generated $4.7 billion in revenue while recording a $4.3 billion net loss. Its balance sheet lists $102 billion in total assets, including its fleet of rockets and aerospace infrastructure, but also carries more than $60.5 billion in outstanding debt.

    Beyond its core business of building rockets and launch infrastructure for deep space exploration, SpaceX has rapidly expanded its portfolio into high-growth emerging tech sectors in recent years. It owns and operates Starlink, the satellite-based global internet service that now has millions of subscribers across the globe, and completed its acquisition of Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI, developer of the Grok chatbot, earlier this year. xAI originally spun out of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and leveraged the platform’s real-time user data to train its large language models.

    Musk has laid out a long-term vision that ties SpaceX’s space infrastructure development directly to the future of artificial intelligence. He has argued that land and energy resources on Earth are too limited to support the exponential growth of AI computing infrastructure, and has publicly outlined plans to launch purpose-built AI satellites and eventually construct large-scale data centers in low Earth orbit. That sprawling, future-focused business model has won over many supporters in the venture capital space. Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at U.S. venture capital firm Citrine Venture Partners, called SpaceX a uniquely ambitious enterprise with multiple high-growth verticals all positioned to shape coming decades of technology.

    “SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future,” Foxe-Blader said. As investors prepare for next week’s listing, all eyes will be on whether market demand matches SpaceX’s aggressive valuation, and whether it will deliver the historic milestone of making Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

  • Senate Republicans axe $1bn for Trump’s new White House ballroom

    Senate Republicans axe $1bn for Trump’s new White House ballroom

    A months-long deadlock on a key US immigration spending bill has broken after Republican lawmakers removed a controversial $1 billion funding allocation earmarked for security upgrades tied to President Donald Trump’s planned new White House ballroom, clearing the way for the Senate to move the legislation forward.

    The $1 billion request for U.S. Secret Service security enhancements tied to the construction project was submitted after an April shooting at a Trump-attended hotel gala. Trump has long maintained that the expanded ballroom is a critical upgrade to accommodate large-scale official state events and modernize outdated security infrastructure, and he has repeatedly claimed the entire construction project would be covered exclusively by private donations.

    When finalized, the reconciliation bill will allocate approximately $72 billion to federal immigration agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol. Democrats had fiercely pushed back against attaching the White House security funding to the immigration legislation, a position that was ultimately upheld by the Senate’s procedural rulekeeper.

    On Wednesday, the Senate voted 53-45 to advance the legislation to the floor debate stage. Lawmakers will now consider the bill and propose amendments before holding a final vote, a process that is expected to extend for several hours and potentially bleed into Thursday. If the bill passes the full Senate, it will next move to the House of Representatives for consideration before it can be transmitted to President Trump for his signature.

    Democrats have uniformly opposed Trump’s plan to construct a large new ballroom on the site of the demolished White House East Wing. The removal of the funding from the immigration bill marks a clear procedural setback for the project, though the long-term impact on construction timelines and financing remains uncertain.

    Progress on the bill, which had been stalled for months, faced an additional hurdle over a separate controversial proposal: a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponisation fund” put forward by the Department of Justice to compensate individuals claimed to have been harmed by government overreach. Critics across the political spectrum have decried the fund as an unaccountable slush fund designed to payout Trump’s political allies, including the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021 in an attempt to block the certification of former President Joe Biden’s election victory.

    During testimony before lawmakers on Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the Department of Justice would abandon plans to establish the fund, but refused to provide a written commitment of the decision. Speaking to reporters shortly after, Trump indicated the proposal had not been fully scrapped, noting he would “have to ask the lawyers” about the way forward.

    Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has announced he will introduce standalone legislation to permanently block the creation of the fund. Other GOP lawmakers have also issued sharp criticism of the proposed fund, and congressional Democrats have confirmed they are also preparing their own legislative measures to prohibit its establishment.

  • Why Canada has generic Ozempic, and the US doesn’t

    Why Canada has generic Ozempic, and the US doesn’t

    For months, 69-year-old retired Canadian Elizabeth Doran has juggled extra substitute teaching shifts, manufacturer discount cards, and introductory free offers just to afford her GLP-1 weight loss medication. Living with prediabetes and high blood pressure in Ottawa, Doran was prescribed Novo Nordisk’s brand-name Wegovy rather than its sister diabetes drug Ozempic — both of which rely on the active ingredient semaglutide — because she had not yet been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. This classification left her ineligible for Ontario’s insurance coverage for diabetic seniors, forcing her to pay between CAD 350 and CAD 500 out of pocket every single month.