Amy Klobuchar

President Donald Trump (R) meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (L) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, October 7, 2025. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation seeking to terminate Trump’s tariffs on Canada. File Photo by Shawn Thew/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 29 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate has passed legislation terminating the national emergency declared by President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on Canada, a day after it terminated the United States’ tariffs on Brazil.

Republicans Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, joined their Democratic colleagues in a 50-46 vote to pass S.J. Res. 77 on Wednesday evening.

“Tonight, the Senate came together and sent President Trump a clear, bipartisan message: he cannot continue to abuse his power and unilaterally wage a trade war against one of our strongest allies,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in a statement.

“We cannot afford to keep raising costs, hurting businesses and eliminating jobs by attacking our neighbor and ally.”

The move is mostly symbolic as it is not expected to be taken up by the Republican-controlled House.

Tariffs have been a central mechanism in Trump’s trade and foreign policy, using them to right what he sees as improper trade relations as well as to penalize nations he feels are doing him and the United States wrong.

In February, Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canadian imports under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, attracting retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.

Then, in August, Trump raised tariffs on Canada to 35%.

Over the weekend, Trump announced a further 10% tariff on Canada over anti-tariff aired by Ontario’s provincial government.

The legislation passed Wednesday seeks to cancel the declared emergency, under which the tariffs were imposed.

“In order to strengthen our weakening economy, we need stability and strong relationships around the world — not chaotic trade wars that raise prices, shut American businesses out of foreign markets and decrease tourism to the U.S.,” Kaine, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.

Relations between Canada and the United States, the closest of allies, have greatly soured under the second Trump administration. From tariffs to comments about annexing Canada, Ottawa and its citizens have begun to turn away from the United States in distrust and frustration to strengthen trade and defensive relations with Europe.

On Tuesday, five Republicans joined the Democrats to pass a similar bill seeking to end Trump’s tariffs on Brazil.

Oct. 7 (UPI) — Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, and refused to answer questions on several topics.

Bondi declined to answer questions about the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey regarding her discussions with President Donald Trump as well as the firings of Department of Justice attorneys who worked on Jan. 6 cases and her refusal to prosecute certain cases of Trump’s allies.

Bondi also avoided questions about the files of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Trump’s alleged friendship with him. She responded that the Democrats should explain their own relationships with him, CNN reported.

Sen Richard Blumenthal, D-N.Y., said Bondi’s testimony was a new low for attorneys general.

“Her apparent strategy is to attack and conceal. Frankly, I’ve been through close to 15 of these attorney general accountability hearings, and I have never seen anything close to it in terms of the combativeness, the evasiveness and sometimes deceptiveness,” Blumenthal told reporters after leaving the hearing. “I think it is possibly a new low for attorneys general testifying before the United States Congress, and I just hope my Republican colleagues will demand more accountability than what we have seen so far.”

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., agreed with Blumenthal.

“She was fully prepared for, with specific and personal comebacks, accusing various of my colleagues, of challenging their integrity or challenging their basis for their questions in a way I’ve not ever seen,” Coons said.

The White House has already praised Bondi’s performance.

“She’s doing great,” a White House official told CNN. “Not only is the AG debunking every single bogus Democrat talking point, but she’s highlighting the Democrats’ own hypocrisy and they have no response.”

Bondi, along with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, criticized the judge in the case of Sophie Roske, the woman who planned an attack on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Roske, who called the police on herself before making contact with Kavanaugh, was sentenced to eight years in prison for the plot.

“My prosecutors did an incredible job on that case,” Bondi said. She said the Justice Department would appeal the sentence, which was 22 years below the federal guidelines and the minimum sentence prosecutors wanted. “The judge also would not refer to the defendant by his biological name,” Bondi said. Roske is transgender.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Bondi what conversations she has had with the White House about investigations into Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Comey. Bondi again declined to answer.

“I’m not going to discuss any conversations,” Bondi said to Klobuchar, CBS News reported.

Klobuchar asked her about a Truth Social post by Trump last in which he asked Bondi why she hadn’t brought charges against Comey, Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“President Trump is the most transparent president in American history, and I don’t think he said anything that he hasn’t said for years,” Bondi said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., pressed her on whether the FBI found any pictures of Trump “with half-naked young women,” saying that Epstein was reported to have shown them around.

“You know, Sen. Whitehouse? You sit here and make salacious remarks, once again, trying to slander President Trump, left and right, when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest confidants,” Bondi responded, referring to tech entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who has said he regretted his contacts with Epstein, CBS reported.

Since Bondi took over at the Justice Department, she and her team have fired prosecutors who worked on capitol riot cases and pushed out career FBI agents.

The Public Integrity Section is nearly empty now, and more than 70% of the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division are also gone, NPR reported.

In a letter Monday, nearly 300 former Justice Department employees asked the Oversight Committee to closely monitor the department.

“We call on Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities far more vigorously. Members in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle must provide a meaningful check on the abuses we’re witnessing,” the letter said.

The letter also alleged poor treatment of staff.

“As for its treatment of its employees, the current leadership’s behavior has been appalling. … And demonizing, firing, demoting, involuntarily transferring, and directing employees to violate their ethical duties has already caused an exodus of over 5,000 of us — draining the Department of priceless institutional knowledge and expertise, and impairing its historical success in recruiting top talent. We may feel the effects of this for generations.”

Bondi said the DOJ stands by the “many terminations” in the department since Trump took office. “We stand by all of those,” she said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in an opening statement, “What has taken place since Jan. 20, 2025, would make even President Nixon recoil.”

Durbin said Bondi has left “an enormous stain in American history.”

“It will take decades to recover,” he said.

The hearing is just two weeks after she sought and secured an indictment of Comey at the direction of the president. Democrats have said she’s weaponizing the Department of Justice, breaking with the longstanding tradition of keeping the department independent of political goals.

Comey was indicted on one count each of lying to Congress and obstructing justice for his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020. Before the indictment, U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert refused to indict because of a lack of evidence against Comey. Trump accused him of waiting too long to indict and nearly allowing the statute of limitations to run out. Siebert resigned under pressure from the administration.

Last week, Durbin said the targeting of Trump’s political enemies is “a code-red alarm for the rule of law” in a floor speech, The Washington Post reported.

“Never in the history of our country has a president so brazenly demanded the baseless prosecution of his rivals,” he said. “And he doesn’t even try to hide it.”

But Republicans claim that Bondi’s leadership is necessary after years of what they say was politicized attacks from the Justice Department under the President Joe Biden administration.

“If the facts and the evidence support the finding that Comey lied to Congress and obstructed our work, he ought to be held accountable,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Judiciary Committee.

During her confirmation hearing, Bondi vowed that weaponization of the Justice Department is over.

“I will not politicize that office,” Bondi said at the time. “I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation.”

July 23 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission as the case proceeds through the courts in another emergency appeal on firings backed by the conservative-dominated court.

The court, in a 6-3 opinion along ideological lines, ruled in a lawsuit brought by Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr., who were nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

In a dissent by Justice Elena Kagan, joined by fellow liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she said the court majority decided on the emergency appeal to “destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress.”

The majority opinion was unsigned and based upon an earlier 6-3 order that allowed the dismissal of two independent labor boards in Trump vs. Wilcox: the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

“Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,” the court ruled. “The stay we issued in Wilcox reflected ‘our judgment that the government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.’

“The same is true on the facts presented here, where the Consumer Product Safety Commission exercises executive power in a similar manner as the National Labor Relations Board, and the case does not otherwise differ from Wilcox in any pertinent respect.”

The order is stayed pending disposition by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va. On July 1, the three-judge panel rejected Trump’s request for an administrative stay pending appeal.

“Congress lawfully constrained the President’s removal authority, and no court has found that constraint unconstitutional,” the appeals court said. “The district court correctly declined to permit a President — any President — to disregard those limits.”

District Judge Matthew Maddox found on June 13 that Trump’s removal was unlawful and blocked it. Maddox, who serves in Maryland, was appointed by President Joe Biden.

“Depriving this five-member commission of three of its sitting members threatens severe impairment of its ability to fulfill its statutory mandates and advance the public’s interest in safe consumer products,” Maddox wrote in his decision. “This hardship and threat to public safety significantly outweighs any hardship defendants might suffer from plaintiffs’ participation on the CPSC.”

The terms of the five members are staggered to overlap during presidencies.

Boyle’s term was to end in October after filling a vacancy in 2022, with Hoehn-Saric in October 2027 and Trumka in October 2028. The board consists of five members, and they are operating as a two-member quorum, which is allowed for six months.

The remaining members are Acting Chairman Peter Feldman, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, and Republican Douglas Dziak, who was appointed by Biden in 2024.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a court ruling that Maddox’s decision has “sown chaos and dysfunction” at the agency.

In May, the three commissioners were notified their positions were terminated immediately. A president can legally only remove a commissioner for neglect of duty of malfeasance.

The court has allowed the termination of employees as the cases proceed through the courts.

Lower court judges have relied on a decision in 1935, called Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, about the mass firings. The Supreme Court has said it will act on this matter.

On July 14, the justices allowed the Trump administration to mass fire half of the Education Department. Trump wants the agency abolished, and the court has not ruled on that decision, which requires a vote by the U.S. Senate.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which was created in 1972, protects consumers from dangerous products, including issuing safety standards and recalls.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat representing Minnesota, criticized the decision, saying: “For over 50 years, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been free from politics so it can remain focused on its core mission of keeping Americans safe – from banning lead paint, to ensuring electronics aren’t fire hazards, to making swimming pools safe for kids. Last year alone, the Commission recalled 153 million unsafe items.”

“By firing the three Democratic commissioners, the President has undermined the independent structure of the Commission and its critical work — and the Supreme Court is letting it happen,” added the member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

July 7 (UPI) — About 30 faculty or staff from scores of Hispanic-serving U.S. universities met Monday at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of a nearly 30-year-old fellowship program to learn more about policy and other issues.

The White House had ended the program during Donald Trump‘s first days back in office this year.

USDA officials welcomed some 30 faculty and staff members to Washington, D.C., from Hispanic-serving colleges and universities in the United States. The institutions are in locations as diverse as Puerto Rico, California, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York. The participants welcomed to Monday’s event are part of the department’s 2025 class of E. Kika De La Garza Education, High School and Science Fellowship program.

“The EKDLG Fellows came to Washington, D.C., to learn how USDA services and programs can benefit them, their students and their communities,” officials said in a release.

More than 500 Hispanic-serving colleges and universities currently serve more than 2 million students in the United States, according to the department.

However, in January the program was suspended by the Trump administration but reinstated only after a coalition of Democratic lawmakers led by Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., demanded that USDA to reverse course.

In addition, the department, likewise, suspended scholarship programs in February for students at historically Black schools while officials reviewed it.

But the EKDLG fellowship pullback posed “a significant threat to our nation’s interests and security,” the San Antonio-based Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities said in February on behalf its more than 560 global partners.

“Hindering the program is an exceptional risk to our country’s interests and security, given the current and pressing national priorities for increased expertise in the agricultural sector’s workforce and improved food production and safety,” the group wrote.

The program is named after the late U.S. Rep. Eligio “Kika” de la Garza II, a Texas Democrat who served as chair of the House Agriculture Committee from 1981-1995.

Nearly 450 participants have taken part in the weeklong fellowship program since 1998 to meet with USDA officials and other agency leaders in a bid to learn more about national and regional agriculture issues, policy-making and other newly relevant research.

“USDA’s partnership with HSIs plays a vital role in establishing a collaborative relationship and creating a nationwide network of educators working with USDA to help grow the next generation of the American agricultural workforce,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

The program’s goal, according to the department, is to “strengthen relationships” with Hispanic-serving or otherwise largely Spanish-speaking educational institutions.

Trump administration officials now say that USDA recognizes how Latino and Hispanic educational entities “are at the forefront of building and sustaining the next generation of the food, agriculture, natural resources and human sciences workforce.”

This week’s program arrives on top of unprecedented and controversial raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on American farms, businesses, churches and other places now threatens the U.S. food supply chain.

“To develop agricultural leaders in both the public and private sectors, Hispanic-serving institutions must take positive steps to engage and create partnerships to build capacity,” Dr. Lisa R. Ramírez, director of USDA’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement, stated Monday.

Meanwhile, following their weeklong visit to the nation’s capitol, the 30 E. Kika De La Garza fellows are slated to spend an additional week with “top scientists” from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

June 15 (UPI) — The search for the man suspected of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers in a “politically motivated” attack continued for the second day Sunday as authorities urged residents to keep their doors locked and cars secured.

State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot dead Saturday in their Brooklyn Park home, near Minneapolis. Earlier, State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were wounded when a gunman shot them “multiple times” in Champlin.

The suspect was later identified as 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter, who has not been located. Boelter’s roommate told KMSP‑TV that he has multiple vehicles, one of which had been modified to look like a police car and was found outside of Hortman’s house.

In an emergency alert sent out Sunday in nearby Sibley County, authorities said a second vehicle owned by Boelter was found in Faxon Township.

“Keep your doors locked and vehicles secured,” the alert said. “Report suspicious activity to 911.”

Officials also said they would be going door-to-door to ask residents to search their properties for Boelter.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar indicated in an interview Sunday that Boelter may have left the state. Authorities have also put out an alert for him in South Dakota, she revealed on NBC News’ Meet the Press.

Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said Saturday that investigators found a “manifesto” in Boelter’s vehicle that included the names of other possible targets. An official who saw the list told NBC News it included officials who supported reproductive rights.

President Donald Trump on Sunday called Gov. Tim Walz a “terrible governor” and “a grossly incompetent person” in comments to ABC’s Rachel Scott but said he “may call him.”

The Minnesota shootings came ahead of another shooting Saturday at a “No Kings” protest against Trump in Salt Lake City that took place around the country. A protest outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Oregon was declared a riot by the Portland Police Bureau on Saturday.