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The US Senate will vote Tuesday on Russian sanctions, days after Ukraine attacked an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to meet United States President Donald Trump in the White House on Tuesday, a meeting that could coincide with the introduction of tough new sanctions on Russia.

Zelenskyy, who will attend the funeral of US Senator Lindsey Graham, ⁠is also scheduled to meet ‌with the Senate on ⁠Tuesday ⁠evening, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two Senate aides.

The vote on Russia sanctions, legislation that has been pending for months and was championed by Graham, could happen that same day.

If enacted, the Russian sanctions bill would ratchet up pressure on Moscow by imposing 100 percent tariffs on goods from the five largest importers of Russian oil and gas, including China and India.

In a last-minute intervention, Trump sought to add sanctions on Iran to the same bill.  Zelenskyy told Trump ally Laura Loomer last week that he thinks the move is a “great idea”.

Iran and Ukraine wars converge

The two wars, taking place roughly 2,500km (1,550 miles) apart, have converged in recent days.

On Saturday, Ukraine attacked an Iranian tanker in the Caspian Sea that Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, said was carrying drones and military components from Iran to Russia. Iran has promised to retaliate.

By attacking Iranian ships, Kyiv is not only doing itself a favour but also attacking Washington’s “enemy number one”, which will please the US, former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia, William Courtney, told Al Jazeera.

But while Zelenskyy supports Iranian sanctions as part of the Russian sanctions bill, Ukraine is unlikely to want to be too closely associated with the “unpopular” US war on Iran, he added.

The US no longer provides direct financial aid to Ukraine for its war against the Russian invasion, but it still provides crucial intelligence for long-range strikes and sells weapons to Europe that are then passed on to Ukraine.

Trump-Zelenskyy relationship

While their relationship seemed tense during a heated exchange in the White House in February 2025, relations between Zelenskyy and Trump have improved significantly in recent months.

The two leaders agreed earlier this month to allow Ukraine to jointly produce Patriot air defence interceptors, a crucial component for the country’s defence against Russian aerial attacks.

Ukraine and the US are also moving closer to a deal on joint drone production, a move that could help the US catch up with Ukraine in this crucial military technology.

Ukraine is on track to produce 6 to 7 million short-range attack drones this year, while the Pentagon’s $1.1bn production programme will have ordered just under 200,000 drones cumulatively by February 2027.

Fighting continues

Heavy fighting continues on Ukraine’s front lines, and long-range strikes are taking place almost every day.

On Monday, Russian strikes on eastern Ukraine killed seven people and ⁠injured more than 20, officials said.

In Russia’s Belgorod region, a Ukrainian drone struck ‌a ‌commercial building, killing one person and injuring two.

Fighting is heaviest in Ukraine’s Konstantinyvka and Pokrovsk directions, both of which are in the Donetsk region.

July 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States paused attacks on Iran at Iranian leaders’ request but said he would order “strong military action” if negotiations fail.

However, there were mixed messages on what those talks entailed Monday. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said there were no new negotiations with the United States, CNN reported, though there are discussions with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States halted attacks on Iran three days ago after 13 consecutive days of nightly bombing.

“We are in very deep talks with Iran,” Trump told Axios during an interview Monday. “If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action.”

The president said in that interview that he isn’t willing to give much time to diplomacy, and that “either it goes fast or not at all.”

The Guardian reported that Trump later told reporters on Air Force One that, “They want to meet, and we’re meeting. Without what we did, they wouldn’t even be talking to us. … They would not have requested the meeting if we were doing poorly. The only reason they want to meet is because we’ve been hitting them very hard.”

Later yet, at a rally in Michigan, Trump said there are “very friendly negotiations” going on.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi held calls with his counterparts from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Egypt in a diplomatic push.

Al-Busaidi said in a statement that the talks between Iran and Oman “focused on ways to enhance the prospects for reaching practical, fair and sustainable arrangement for maritime navigation … throughthe Strait of Hormuz,” Axios reported.

Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said Tehran “would never allow the United States to determine the timing of war and peace.”

“Mediators may convey messages from the American side to us regarding current developments in the region,” he said, the Guardian reported. “But at present we are not engaged in any negotiations with the United States.”

Baghaei said the talks with Oman were “useful and constructive” but that they have nothing to do with the United States.

A lower court blocked the mail-in ballot restrictions, ruling Trump lacked authority to change state election rules.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to allow it to move ahead with sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting ahead of November’s midterm elections, as it continues its push to reshape how federal elections are run.

In an emergency filing on Monday, the Justice Department asked the country’s highest court to pause a lower court ruling that blocked parts of Trump’s March executive order in 23 Democratic-led states and Washington, DC. The pause would remain in effect as the legal challenges play out, per the request.

The executive order directed federal agencies to help create state lists of eligible voters and required the US Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists. It also instructed the Justice Department to prioritise investigations into election officials accused of issuing ballots to ineligible voters.

US District Judge Indira Talwani blocked the order in June, ruling that Trump lacked the authority to unilaterally change how states administer federal elections. She noted that under the Constitution, states oversee voter-eligibility requirements.

Over the weekend, the First US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause that ruling, prompting the administration to take the issue to the Supreme Court.

In its request to the top court, the administration argued that the order amounted to “general policy guidance” rather than a directive dictating how states should administer elections.

Solicitor General John Sauer wrote: “The injunction is especially indefensible because the agencies are still deliberating over how (if at all) to implement the Order, yet the district court preemptively decided that whatever the agencies may choose to do will necessarily be unlawful.”

He urged the Supreme Court to act quickly as the new policy would have to be in place by August to be effective by the midterm election in November.

Trump has long claimed, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud undermined the 2020 presidential election and has repeatedly questioned the security of mail-in voting, despite studies showing that such fraud is rare.

He has promised to end the widespread use of mail ballots before the midterms, which will determine which party takes control of the US House of Representatives and Senate.

Voting rights advocates say restricting mail-in voting could disproportionately affect Democratic voters, who have historically been more likely than Republicans to cast their ballots by mail.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court on Monday to lift a judge’s order and clear the way for state-by-state lists of citizens who are eligible to vote by mail.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer filed an emergency appeal and said judges in Boston had wrongly intervened too soon.

In March, Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service to direct states to compile a list of citizens who are eligible to vote. This list would limit who may receive a mail ballot.

He also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to “compile and transmit state-specific lists of individuals who are citizens and will be 18 years of age or older at the time of an upcoming election,” Sauer said.

Lawyers for California and 22 other Democratic-led states sued, arguing the states, not the federal government, have the constitutional authority to set the rules for voting and elections.

In June, they won before a federal judge in Boston who blocked Trump’s order from going forward, at least in the 23 states which had sued. Her decision was upheld over the weekend by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

In his appeal, Trump’s solicitor general focused on a procedural question, not the issue of whether the president has the legal authority to impose national rules on state-run elections.

Sauer said the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security had not issued final specific plans to comply with Trump’s directive.

“Courts cannot enjoin implementation of Executive Orders that leave open material issues that still need to be resolved by agencies,” he wrote.

He asked the court to lift or stay the “premature injunctions.”

Time is running short, he said.

“Absent a stay … there will not be sufficient time to obtain appellate relief before the November election,” Sauer said. “That is especially true because implementation efforts for any USPS rule or DHS policy will need to begin well before November … particularly given that absentee and mail-in voting begin (in some States) several weeks prior to Election Day.”

The justices asked for a response from the 23 Democratic states by Aug. 3.

July 27 (UPI) — The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice said Monday that they’re taking “significant action” against school districts in Maryland and Michigan because of policies allowing school personal to protect students’ personal gender identity.

In a press release, the departments said Anne Arundel public schools in Maryland and Ann Arbor public schools in Michigan were “hiding sensitive information about children’s health well-being from their own parents.” They cited parental rights in the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office received complaints from Maryland parents who said that the school was helping their child “pretend to be male.” The principal declined to give the parents information about their student, and the assistant principal refused to turn over records, the release said. It said the SPPO and the Just Department’s Civil Rights Division will start applicable judicial proceedings and the district may face the loss of federal funding.

In Michigan, the release said, SPPO has found an Ann Arbor district policy requiring school employees to protect a student’s gender identity from their parents “likely violates FERPA.” The departments have given the district until Aug. 10 to “demonstrate why ED and DOJ should not move forward with enforcement.”

“This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Today, ED and DOJ are putting districts on notice that we will use every tool available to hold them to account for this egregious behavior.”

July 27 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on his way to Washington, D.C., on Monday for his eighth meeting with President Donald Trump since he returned to the White House last year.

The war in Iran will be the key topic Trump and Netanyahu are expected to discuss when they meet at the White House this week. It will be their first meeting since the war began. The two leaders have expressed differing opinions about peace agreements in recent weeks.

“In these complex times, you need to act with both great determination and great wisdom,” Netanyahu said in a video statement Monday. “We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, primarily Iran. Of course, our goal is to protect our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us.”

Fighting between the United States and Iran resumed over the past two weeks after a preliminary peace agreement between both sides fell apart. The U.S. military said it paused strikes on Iran over the weekend after a series of daily attacks.

Iran’s military said it is also halting strikes against the United States as long as the United States holds off.

It is a politically significant time for both Netanyahu and Trump. On Oct. 27, Israel’s legislative election will include all 120 seats in the Knesset, determining who will lead the government. The prime minister will be determined in consultation between the Israeli president and the Knesset, through a series of coalition formations.

Meanwhile, Trump’s focus politically is on the midterm elections in November. The elections will determine the political makeup on Capitol Hill and Trump’s path toward advancing his agenda in the final two years of his term.

Nearly four years after being extradited to the United States for a drug-trafficking trial, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez returned home after a pardon by US President Donald Trump at the end of last year.

Trump claimed the trial was a “set up” orchestrated by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Hernandez still faces corruption charges in Honduras but returned on Sunday after an arrest warrant against him was cancelled.

Human rights activists and lawyers fear a trial on home soil, where his party holds the presidency, would be a sham.

So why did Trump pardon and release the former president of Honduras despite abducting and arresting Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro on drug and gun charges in January?

Why did Hernandez return to Honduras?

Hernandez was able to return after being pardoned by Trump, released from a US prison and then having an arrest warrant against him suspended last month.

He arrived at Palmerola International Airport, where he was greeted by his family and supporters of his National Party.

Hernandez led his country from 2014 to 2022, during which, according to US prosecutors, he once boasted he would “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos”, referring to Americans.

Shortly after leaving office, he was extradited to the US, where he was found guilty by a federal jury and sentenced to 45 years in prison for involvement in a scheme to export cocaine to the US.

Prosecutors described the scheme as “one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world”. He was convicted of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from violent drug-trafficking organisations over 18 years, which he was alleged to have used to fuel his rise in politics.

“During his political career, Hernandez abused his powerful positions and authority in Honduras to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the US,” the US Department of Justice said after he was sentenced last year.

During his trial, Hernandez denied taking bribes from drug dealers, arguing he in fact cracked down on the narcotics trade and citing his administration’s cooperation with the US military.

“I cannot deny the profound emotion and joy I feel in my heart to be returning home,” Hernandez wrote on social media earlier this month, saying he was counting down the days to see his family.

“It wasn’t easy. The process has been extremely difficult … and what I experienced in prison, I truly wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he added.

Hernandez is expected to appear in court on August 3 to face the Honduran corruption charges.

Why did Trump pardon him?

Under the US Constitution, a president may offer two types of clemency for federal crimes: pardons, which forgive defendants their federal charges and restore their civil liberties, and commutations, which reduce people’s punishment without addressing their convictions.

Hernandez was pardoned by Trump in December. The US president said Hernandez had not received a fair trial and had been “set up” by the Biden administration.

Trump added that Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly”.

At the same time, Trump also threw his weight behind right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a member of Hernandez’s party. He ran in November’s presidential election and was declared the winner a month later in the close race after delays and allegations of fraud. He took office in January.

A Pandora Papers corruption investigation also accused Hernandez of diverting nearly $11m in state funds to political campaigns from 2010 to 2013.

Why a pardon for some but jail for others?

The Trump administration has faced criticism at home for pardoning the Honduran leader while at the same time abducting former President Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, Cilia Flores, in January on similar charges.

Maduro and Flores were seized in Caracas by the US military and flown to New York, where he is facing a range of guns and drugs charges and accusations of being a “narcoterrorist”.

At the time of Maduro’s abduction and since then, the Trump administration has targeted small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that it claims, without providing evidence, are involved in drug trafficking. More than 220 people have been killed in more than 60 such strikes on small boats in what many lawyers and activists have deemed extrajudicial killings.

Since taking office for a second term in January 2025, Trump has ordered more than 1,800 acts of clemency benefitting a range of personalities, including cryptocurrency billionaires, disgraced politicians and hundreds of political allies.

Some of the most controversial beneficiaries are supporters of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, including hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to prevent the certification of Biden’s electoral victory over Trump two months earlier.

Legal experts have argued that while the president’s clemency power is broad, using it for allegedly corrupt purposes, such as to protect political allies or obstruct justice, could form the basis for impeachment proceedings.

US constitutional expert Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that the US Constitution’s framers “understood the abuse of the pardon power to shelter political or personal friends to constitute an impeachable high crime and misdemeanour justifying the removal of the president through the impeachment process”.

“If Democrats gain control of Congress in the midterm elections, Trump will be in impeachment jeopardy for pardoning Hernandez,” Fein said, referring to elections in November.

President Donald Trump has paused attacks on Iran for the second night in a row to give diplomacy more time, the US ambassador to the UN said.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, ambassador Mike Waltz said the president was “giving talks some space, he’s giving it a little bit of room”.

An Iranian army spokesperson said on Sunday that Tehran had halted “retaliatory” attacks in the region in response.

The pause follows nearly two weeks of daily US strikes and tit-for-tat attacks, effectively unravelling the ceasefire struck in June.

Asked whether Trump had decided against escalation for now, Waltz told NBC: “I wouldn’t go that far at all. The president is keeping all options on the table.”

Waltz also rejected reports in the New York Times, external that administration officials had warned expanding hostilities could dangerously drain a diminished stockpile of air defence munitions.

“The US military… has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,” he said.

As of Sunday evening, Trump had not spoken publicly on the latest developments, but earlier posted computer-generated images on his Truth Social account that depicted US military planes bombing Iranian ships and Kharg island.

Meanwhile, Iran and Oman held several rounds of technical talks in Tehran on Friday and Saturday to discuss management of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei.

Disputes over control of the strait reignited US-Iran tensions earlier this month and it remains a major block to permanently ending the war.

Iran and the US signed a memorandum of understanding in June to halt military operations and reopen the strait, as well as to reach an agreement to end the war over the following 60 days.

But after Iranian forces attacked tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on 13 July, the US resumed airstrikes on the country and reinstated its naval blockade on Iranian ports.

Iran retaliated with attacks on US military facilities and bases across the Middle East, killing four American soldiers. The US strikes have since killed dozens of people, according to Iran’s health ministry.

In the UK, new Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said he would meet his US counterpart Pete Hegseth in the coming week to discuss the strait, which is one of the world’s key transport routes for oil, liquid natural gas and other essential commodities.

“When it comes to securing maritime freedom and free commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, that’s where we are absolutely aligned,” Streeting told the BBC.

Earlier this week, oil prices hit $100 a barrel for the first time since May, as the renewed fighting stoked fears over global energy supplies.

As the war nears its fifth month, it remains largely unpopular in the US, with a new poll from CBS/YouGov suggesting 57% of Americans are frustrated about the conflict and only 19% optimistic.

Thousands of people have been killed across the Middle East since the US-Israeli war with Iran began in February, official figures show, with the vast majority coming from Iran and Lebanon.

President Trump is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has acknowledged in court documents that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,” including California and 15 other states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The statement, included in a court filing last week in a lawsuit over the canceled funding, contradicts repeated assertions by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials that the projects were canceled because they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or had other problems that made them a poor investment of taxpayer dollars.

The Department of Energy said in the filing Wednesday that “DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants … was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State. DOE will not contend that it looked beyond the prime grantee(s) to consider the political identity or geographic distribution of downstream beneficiaries of the grant funds.”

The agency also said that it “accepts that the differential treatment resulting in the October 2025 termination of Blue State grants and the non-termination of non-Blue State grants was not based on a rational connection between the recipient’s location and/or place of performance and DOE’s past or current agency priorities.”

Democrats and environmental groups seized on the court filing, saying the administration had “weaponized” the federal government to kill good jobs and punish working families because of their political views.

A ‘corrupt abuse of power’

“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said in a joint statement. Both are high-ranking Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively.

“Weaponizing the federal government like this is outright un-American, and it’s hardworking families already struggling with sky-high costs who are suffering the consequences of this corrupt abuse of power,” Kaptur and Murray said.

They called on congressional Republicans to join them in holding the Trump administration “accountable for the President’s failure to look out for all Americans.”

The Energy Department announced in October that 321 funding awards across 223 projects were terminated, saying that after review, they “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable.”

The cuts, part of broader attacks from President Trump on climate programs and clean energy funding, slashed federal support for projects to build battery plants, develop hydrogen technology, upgrade the electric grid and capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, highlighted the cutbacks in a social media post, saying that money “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Projects from many states were cut

Projects that were cut were located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. All 16 targeted states supported Harris, but Wright said the cuts were “business decisions” based on whether the projects were a good use of taxpayer money or not.

The cuts were immediately challenged in court, and more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, wrote a letter to the Energy Department’s acting inspector general requesting a formal investigation. The department’s internal watchdog launched an investigation in December.

Government lawyers had previously confirmed in a court filing late last year that the selection of grants in fact “was influenced by whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect … Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called ‘Blue States’).”

That filing came in a separate suit filed by clean-energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minn., over the canceled funding. The most recent admission came in a case called Thakur vs. Trump that’s been ongoing since spring 2025. Federal lawyers acknowledged that they used keywords related to diversity, gender and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration’s priorities.

Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, said the latest court filing shows “the Trump administration is brazenly admitting to a vindictive approach to cancelling much-needed energy infrastructure that ignores the job losses, air pollution and increasing bills that people are experiencing everywhere.”

Instead of “building the energy projects we desperately need,” billions of American taxpayer dollars are “going to line the pockets of a small handful of fossil fuel company CEOs,” Bender said, citing nearly $3 billion pledged by the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind projects in favor of fossil fuel projects such as natural gas and coal.

Daly writes for the Associated Press.

ICE officer under review for alleged mental health struggles, violent behavior amid deadly shooting case in Maine.

United States President Donald Trump’s border czar says the vetting of an immigration officer involved in the deadly shooting of a Colombian native in Maine is under internal review after the officer’s relatives revealed to The Associated Press that he had a history of serious mental health struggles and violent behaviour.

Tom Homan said on Sunday that if the allegations against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer are true, “I don’t think he should ever have cleared vetting.”

“There’s several things under review,” Homan said on CNN about the officer, Army veteran David Brouillette. “The training is under review. I know this specific case, as far as the vetting, is under review by the internal affairs section.”

Questions about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) rush to hire, train and deploy thousands of new ICE officers to carry out Trump’s immigration crackdown have come into stark focus after back-to-back deadly shootings of immigrants in Maine and Houston.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered a pause in vehicle stops after the Maine shooting, but Trump almost immediately reversed course and insisted the stops resume as a necessary tool in his campaign to round up and deport immigrants without current legal status.

DHS did not immediately respond on Sunday to a request for comment about the internal review.

ICE mandates body cameras during vehicle stops

Homan said that “changes have been made” and that acting ICE director David Venturella has issued a new directive that body cameras must be in use if officers make a vehicle stop.

“Right now, on all vehicle stops, there’s at least one body camera on site to record the entire event,” he said.

He said Venturella “sent an instruction out that he wants at least one body camera on those vehicle stops, so we have everything on video”.

It is unclear if the steps the department is taking will be enough to quell the concerns coming from certain Congress lawmakers over DHS training and tactics as it tries to reach Trump’s mass deportation goals.

Lawmakers push for answers

Lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns.

Democrats pressed ICE officials during a closed-door briefing for the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee last week, leaving some with more questions than answers.

Lawmakers were told during the briefing that there have been 56 complaints of excessive force against ICE officers – 32 were cleared, and one was referred for disciplinary action.

No discipline had yet been handed out, the lawmakers said they were told. The rest of the incidents are still under investigation.

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, has pushed for the use of body cameras and ensured funding for the effort. She had said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the officer involved in the shooting in her home state was not using a camera.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to eliminate a foundational safety principle that has for 50 years minimized the radiation people in the United States are exposed to and that has been adopted around the world.

Currently, facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals or academic institutions that use radioactive materials must ensure radiation exposures are kept “as low as reasonably achievable” — the ALARA principle. The NRC proposal would abandon that philosophy while keeping a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure.

The two standards have worked together in radiation safety. Dose limits set the maximum amount of radiation the public and radiation workers can be exposed to, while ALARA kept radiation exposure as low as practical under those limits. Research shows radiation exposure increases a person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose increases.

The dose limits are not changing. But the NRC, which regulates civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials, now wants to replace ALARA with a “graded approach” that includes several actions facilities must take depending on the potential dose of radiation to workers. More rigorous radiation protection measures would be required when approaching dose limits to ensure they aren’t exceeded.

This comes as President Trump attempts to quadruple domestic nuclear energy production because of surging electricity demand amid a data center and artificial intelligence boom. Reforming the NRC is one way Trump is trying to speed up nuclear reactor development. He instructed the federal agency in an executive order last year to “adopt science-based radiation limits.”

The Energy Department, which oversees national energy policies, has already stopped using ALARA. The NRC expects to finalize its radiation protection regulations in the coming months.

NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the commission is not lowering the bar on safety.

“We’re just removing the ambiguity,” he said in a call with reporters. “But the standard for exposure to workers and the public, those are not changing. We’re just putting in place greater clarification.”

Nieh doesn’t expect major changes within the nation’s existing fleet of large, traditional reactors. But companies designing and building new, smaller reactors could move faster with a clearer picture of the radiation protection requirements, he said.

Could radiation doses creep higher?

The NRC said radiation exposure limits are set well below levels associated with health effects, and it expects remaining standards and industry practices to keep radiation doses far below the limits. There’s incentive to do so — it’s more expensive and time-consuming to work in areas with higher radiation because access must be restricted and more surveys are required.

The nuclear industry’s trade association agrees with the NRC.

“We will always continue to look at what can we do to reduce the dose to workers, and maintain our doses to the off-site public as low as possible,” said Doug True, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “It’s not like we’re just going to throw open the doors and let everything run up to the limits.”

ALARA created a “moving target” for regulation, said Justin Friedman, a nuclear energy consultant who previously spent three decades at the U.S. Department of State. Getting rid of the rule would allow NRC scientists to make more rational decisions about appropriate levels of manageable risk, he added.

Some experts question cutting ALARA

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, cautions that some parts of the NRC proposal could raise permissible radiation doses in certain cases, while still staying below the cap. Lyman highlighted a proposed revision to radionuclide emissions standards, in particular.

Radiation exposure to the general public is limited to 100 millirem per year. A typical dose of radiation from a chest X-ray is 10 millirem.

The NRC wants to increase its radionuclide emissions standards from a conservative, 10 millirem per year dose to 25 millirem per year, based on a hypothetical person living in a house at the property line for a nuclear plant.

The NRC says actual doses to the public would remain far lower because, in reality, people live farther from nuclear sites and benefit from dispersion in air and water.

The NRC should improve, rather than eliminate, ALARA, Lyman said, to protect the public and workers. ALARA has become a political target because some people mistakenly believe radiation exposures have to be as low as possible no matter the cost, Lyman said. In reality, it allows trade-offs.

Katy Huff, a former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in some cases, the requirement may be challenging to regulate. Additional clarity would improve the regulatory environment without harming the public, added Huff, a professor and department chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

However, Huff said, she thought the NRC was going to clarify what “reasonably” means in ALARA without scrapping it. She said she’s open to being convinced the graded approach will be just as effective.

One expert sees a mixed bag

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, chartered by Congress to provide independent scientific guidance, has not formally weighed in yet. Council President Kathryn Higley said she likes some things in the 180-page document but thinks others are problematic.

The NRC should look at the whole picture for managing risk, she said. For instance, if a worker at a nuclear power plant were to enter an area where airborne radioactive materials are present, in keeping with ALARA, they might wear full personal protective equipment with respirators, said Higley, professor emeritus at Oregon State University. That makes them move slower, potentially subjecting them to heat stress that could hurt them more than a low dose of radioactivity, she said.

A concern with the proposal, Higley said, is that it maintains the current occupational dose limit for adult radiation workers at 5 rem, or 5,000 millirem, per year. With ALARA in place, the average dose to workers has been well below that cap.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends an occupational dose of 2 rem per year on average. The NRC previously found it wasn’t justified to match that, because workers were exposed to less than that and changing regulations is costly.

Higley said the U.S. may need to align with the international community if ALARA is going away.

McDermott writes for the Associated Press.

A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that in nearly half of U.S. states halted President Trump’s executive order to create a federal list of eligible voters and limit delivery of mail ballots only to people on that list.

The ruling Saturday by judges of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s effort to move forward with the mail-in voting restrictions in 23 U.S. states that sued ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Trump issued an executive order in March for the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters. It also ordered the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on that list.

Trump has claimed the proposed changes are necessary safeguards to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting, but state election officials argued they were ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged Trump’s order in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. They argued that Trump’s order was unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the authority to set election rules.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani agreed and halted Trump’s order from being implemented for the Nov. 3 elections, but only in the states that have sued.

Trump’s executive order is part of his ongoing campaign to restrict voting access and raise doubts about the integrity of the election system before the November midterms.

The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately return an email seeking comment Sunday about the court ruling.

Bynum writes for the Associated Press.

The Sunday Times says, external Prime Minister Andy Burnham will give England’s metropolitan mayors a share of income tax to spend in their cities, in devolution plans to be announced next week. It says the policy will be driven from the new Number 10 North office in Manchester.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, external about his government’s priorities, Burnham says “if I’ve learnt anything from my time in politics, it’s that ‘it can’t be done’ is usually just another way of saying ‘we’ve stopped trying’.” In an article justifying policy decisions that have been taken so far, he adds, “our job will only be done when people aren’t just living, they’re living well.”

The Sunday Telegraph claims, external that the new Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, has offered in a call with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, to collaborate on a global effort to re-open the Strait of Hormuz. The paper says a conference may be held in London to bring together representatives from more than 40 countries to discuss the issue. It describes the efforts as an attempt to “turn the page” on the divergence between the US and UK over the Iran war.

The wildfires raging across Europe feature on the front page of the Observer, external. It carries a stark full page image of a bather walking into the sea, with billowing smoke causing the sky to blacken. The headline reads: “Baptism of Fire.”

The Sun on Sunday reports, external that a group of migrants who arrived in the UK this week may include suspects wanted for questioning in connection with the fatal stabbing of another migrant. The incident is alleged to have happened in the seaside resort of Berck-sur-Mer in northern France on Thursday.

The Sunday Express claims, external that Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, is close to agreeing to a deal with broadcasters for a documentary series about her life. It says Netflix is one of the broadcasters she has been negotiating with. Those negotiating on behalf of Ferguson have stipulated that her contributions would have to be filmed outside the US because of the risk of being subpoenaed by the Congressional House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the crimes of her former husband’s friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

July 25 (UPI) — A federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration cannot implement tighter rules for mail-in voting in the mid-term elections this November.

The ruling, handed down by the First U.S. Circuit of Appeals on Saturday, will prevent his administration from creating a list of eligible voters and from requiring the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots to people who are not on the list, The Hill and Bloomberg News reported.

The three-judge panel rejected the administration’s appeal of lower court rulings in late June and early July that an executive order issued in April to expand the federal government’s role in managing elections could not be put into effect.

The April 1 executive order was condemned by critics at the time as an attempt by President Donald Trump and the administration to interfere with the mid-term elections, and led to 23 states and the District of Columbia to file suit to stop it.

The appeals court said in its ruling that the federal government failed to make its case for lifting the federal government’s injunction, which was partially based on the lower court preventing the executive order from going into effect.

“To be sure, the injunction prevents the federal Defendants from enforcing the EO in the Plaintiff states’ upcoming primary and general federal elections in September and November,” the judges wrote.

Trump, who continues to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election, signed the order under the guise of election integrity based on his also false claims of widespread voter fraud.

The fraud allegations center on ineligible people casting mail-in ballots, of which Trump and his administration have not shown happened in significant numbers during the 2020 election.

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to build a state citizenship list based on federal date, to send the lists to state elections officials to verify mail-in ballots go to eligible voters and for the USPS not to send out absentee or mail-in ballots to people who do not appear on the lists.

July 25 (UPI) — The Trump administration admitted that it canceled nearly $8 billion in grants slated for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely” on whether a state voted for Kamala Harris for president, it was reported Friday.

In a recent court filing, a lawyer for the Energy Department said none of the axed projects lost their funding “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.”

The Trump administration attorney added, “The 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators.”

The government’s admission, first reported by The New York Times, came out as part of a July 15 court filing in a class action lawsuit over the slashed grants.

The Department of Energy selected 600 grants for cancellation and sent the list to the Office of Management and Budget, which terminated 284 of them in October.

“Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” OMB Director Russell Vought wrote on X.

Despite also being recommended for cancellation from energy officials, the OMB left untouched hundreds of projects in places that voted for Trump, court documents show.

“The inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State,” Trump administration lawyers wrote.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, called the move “unprecedented Trumpism and something we should never become numb to.”

“Trump admits he’s ripping the rug out from under hardworking families so he can get revenge on the Americans who didn’t vote for him,” the New York democrat added. “It’s sick and deranged. His ego is so fragile, he’ll punish families already struggling to put food on the table for a little bit of vengeance.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said, “This mass partisan retribution is appalling, outrageous, dangerous, lawless, unconstitutional, unpatriotic and a massive offense against the Republic.”

“Every elected official must denounce this imbecilic deep betrayal of America,” Raskin added in a statement. “And the illegally impounded funds must be restored and released immediately to the blue states.”

President Trump ordered his administration Friday to install signs in front of the Smithsonian Institution’s U.S. history museum telling visitors that some of the exhibits are inaccurate, his latest move to reshape how the story of the United States is told.

Trump’s move follows a report released July 4 by his Domestic Policy Council saying leaders of the Smithsonian and its National Museum of American History don’t tell history “in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.”

The president lacks authority to quickly fire the Smithsonian leadership or to order changes to exhibits, so his executive order targets the sidewalks out front, which are maintained by the National Park Service. The order calls for signs telling visitors about the White House report and directing them to resources for what he calls “accurate information regarding America’s history.” It also calls for a temporary exhibit that corrects information he deems inaccurate.

Smithsonian officials declined to comment on Trump’s order.

Anthea M. Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, challenged the White House report during congressional hearings last week.

“As we continue to fact-check the report, we unwaveringly attest that it does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum,” she told lawmakers. “There is always room for improvement. But I also know the beauty and the inspiration and the expertise that lies in our collections, our exhibits, and our programming.”

The Smithsonian operates outside the executive branch, and museum directors report to Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch, who is subject to oversight from its Board of Regents.

Trump’s escalating effort to force changes at the Smithsonian marks the president’s latest move to transform cultural pillars of society, such as universities and art, that he considers out of step with conservative sensibilities. Trump had himself installed as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the aim of overhauling programming, and his handpicked board voted to add his name to the building, only for a federal judge to later order the signs to be removed.

Trump has also imposed changes on historical sites beyond Washington, including in Philadelphia, where the administration won a court ruling this month allowing it to reinstall interpretive panels that critics say whitewash the history of slavery at the site of President Washington’s home. Advocates, academics and officials have been concerned for months that the version that complies with Trump’s order could give a history that plays down the pain in the nation’s past in favor of a more triumphant view.

Trump in March revealed his intention to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order that targeted funding for programs that advanced “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

President Trump’s $1.4-billion crypto windfall has become the biggest obstacle to passing his sweeping digital-asset legislation as Democrats demand tougher language to prevent the president from profiting off an industry his administration regulates.

Senate Republicans released a proposal this week intended to break a months-long impasse over the bill, known as the Clarity Act. But Democrats and consumer watchdog groups dismissed the terms almost immediately, complaining the bill would not stop Trump or his family from continuing to profit from his meme coin and other crypto ventures.

Trump needs the support of at least seven Senate Democrats to pass the legislation, which would set rules for digital assets. Ethics has emerged as the biggest, though not the only, sticking point.

“It’s the linchpin,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat and key negotiator who has been supportive of the crypto industry.

A spokesperson for the White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House has consistently asserted Trump is not involved in managing the family’s crypto ventures and has denied conflicts of interest.

Democrats have specifically taken issue with a provision that would leave Trump’s Justice Department as the primary enforcer of the new ethics regulations, preventing state attorneys general from acting as an independent check.

Another Democratic negotiator, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said they’re working on a compromise ethics proposal to send to the White House but didn’t provide details.

Senators in both parties said they see the negotiations in the coming week as key to whether a bill reaches Trump’s desk this year. But after the chilly initial reception to the latest White House offer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.C.) said he didn’t think the Clarity Act would pass the chamber before the month-long August recess.

“We’ll see where the votes are,” Thune said.

Alsobrooks, Gallego and other crypto-friendly Democrats are demanding changes to other pieces of the massive bill, including consumer protection and illicit finance measures.

The bill has other issues, including opposition from banks intent on tightening restrictions on stablecoin rewards. Tillis and several other Republicans said they are considering backing changes to reflect banks’ concerns that their deposits could shift to stablecoin accounts, crimping their profits and customers’ access to credit.

Tillis has floated adding “circuit-breaker” language empowering the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or other regulators to step in if bank deposits drop — an idea opposed by GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, the crypto industry’s biggest backer in the chamber.

Porous provisions

Critics said the draft’s ethics protections are porous. It would let Trump divest a large stake in his crypto venture or move it into a blind trust for the rest of his term, but stops short of requiring him to sell.

“It’s going to allow him to keep making money the way he has in the past,” said Scott Greytak, deputy executive director of Transparency International US, an anti-corruption advocacy group.

The restrictions also hinge on whether an official has a “direct interest” in a crypto asset — a threshold that may not apply to Trump.

The president is a significant owner of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture, through an entity called DT Marks DEFI LLC, which holds about a 38% stake. Whether that counts as a direct interest “isn’t clear,” said Zach Everson, research director for Public Citizen’s Trump Accountability Project. “Does direct interest describe how he holds the crypto?”

Because the bill wouldn’t apply to the children of government officials, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump could continue their own crypto business interests. And much of the family’s fortune has already been made: Trump and his affiliates have earned a huge windfall from meme coin and token ventures, income the legislation would not claw back.

Critics also decried a provision that would sunset the ethics requirements on Jan. 20, 2029, the day Trump’s successor would be inaugurated. That could prevent the next administration from holding Trump accountable.

The White House and Republicans argued that Trump had gone further in backing ethics restrictions in law than any previous president.

“History will remember this as the moment a president chose a higher standard of ethics than the law required of him,” Lummis, a key architect of the bill, said on X.

Democrats were skeptical even before the language was released. “Any meaningful ethics provision would be shot down by the White House,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said.

The politics of crypto have long divided Democrats, and a bipartisan deal on the legislation risks provoking a backlash from progressives. Failure to reach a deal, however, could make the party the target of a torrent of crypto campaign cash.

Crypto group Fairshake and its two affiliated super PACs have raised $164 million for the midterm elections, Federal Election Commission filings show, and have spent $66.6 million so far.

It’s the kind of political arsenal that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York can ill afford to have aimed at his candidates as the party seeks to regain Senate control.

But others, like Murphy, have warned that blessing Trump’s big crypto bill would undermine Democrats’ midterm message.

A potential presidential candidate, Murphy said Wednesday while addressing the left-leaning Center for American Progress that the bill is before the Senate “because the industry paid for it” and urged Democrats to instead turn fighting crypto corruption into a potent campaign issue this fall.

Markets have grown less convinced a deal gets done. On Polymarket, the odds of the Clarity Act passing this year fell to about 1 chance in 3 earlier this week after Republicans released the new draft.

That’s about half the odds the prediction market gave passage after the Senate Banking Committee backed an earlier version of the bill on May 14.

Dennis and Patterson write for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writers Yash Roy, Lydia Beyoud, Aidan Williams, Bill Allison and Olga Kharif contributed to this report.

July 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s ready to continue talks with Iran or escalate fighting, but an Iranian general said it’s ready to fight.

Trump met with top advisors and cabinet members on Friday to make a decision on whether to escalate attacks on Iran, The New York Times reported. Friday night, no attacks on Iran from the United States or on U.S. military sites were reported after 13 straight nights of fighting.

The White House hasn’t said if the president decided what to do, but Trump said the military is ready for a heavier attack if Iran doesn’t want to resume talks.”Look, we’re locked and loaded,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “We’re ready to go, but we’re talking to them, so maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point. Maybe they will cry uncle, or maybe they’ll just give up, or maybe they’ll just go into a cave and hide.”

He told reporters that Iran is getting more serious about talks to end the fighting.

“We are talking to them. I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason, but we are talking to them right now,” Trump said Friday.

He said that Iran would “love to make a deal” but he didn’t “think they’re ready to.”

But an Iranian general pushed back Saturday, even suggesting that Tehran welcomed a ground invasion by American troops.

“Our war with the enemy is a war of attrition, one that will not end,” the official whom Iranian media named General Asadi said Saturday, CNN reported. “We ask God that the ground forces of the aggressor American army find themselves in a position where we can engage them on the ground.”

In an interview with Axios on Thursday, Trump said he was considering a “massive attack” on Iran.

“Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” he said. But he said that decision would have consequences, and he hadn’t decided on it yet.

He told Axios that the Iranians “want to negotiate” but aren’t ready to make a deal.

“They haven’t received enough pain yet,” he said.

Two regional sources with knowledge of mediation efforts told Axios that Iranian leadership hasn’t accepted the latest proposal.

One of the sources said, “We are trying, but the Iranians are not being helpful.”

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

There’s no exact way to measure the effectiveness of Los Angeles City Council members.

But we analyzed three basic elements — meeting attendance, committee assignments and amount of legislation drafted — to give readers a sense of what their local electeds are up to.

Meeting attendance

As part of charter reform efforts, the City Council considered reducing the number of council meetings from three per week to just one.

The proposal failed earlier this month after receiving stiff pushback from at least one councilmember, Monica Rodriguez.

“Meeting less for a city of 4 million people I think sends the wrong message. Particularly when you have the best-paid council in the country,” said Rodriguez in an interview on Fox 11 earlier this year (each councilmember makes an annual salary of more than $244,000). “This idea that we would be meeting less I believe runs contrary to what the public is demanding form their council.”

Yet Rodriguez isn’t a stickler for showing up to meetings herself, ranking near the bottom of her colleagues for attendance. Since the start of 2025, Rodriguez has attended about 86% of meetings, missing 25 out of 177 meetings, according to a Times analysis.

Gabriel Avalos, a spokesperson for Rodriguez, implied that other work-related matters kept her from the meetings.

“There’s no distinction for absences related to city business, but she certainly wasn’t absent due to dishes and laundry,” Avalos said.

Only two other councilmembers missed more meetings than Rodriguez — mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who missed 30 meetings, and Curren Price, who missed 34 while dealing with illnesses.

On the other end of the spectrum, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who runs the meetings, missed the fewest — just four of the 177 meetings from January 2025 until this month.

Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado each attended 169 meetings, or about 96%.

Stella Stahl, a spokesperson for Raman, said that most of the councilmember’s absences were due to her position as the city’s representative on the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The remaining absences, Stahl said in a statement, “were tied to a small number of previously scheduled conferences and speaking engagements relevant to her committee work and district priorities, along with occasional sick days and travel for a funeral.”

Committee assignments

Council members are appointed to committees by the council president. They can sit on additional committees if the president lets them.

These small groups of council members are responsible for reviewing the first drafts of legislation. Committee chairs have the power to move legislation forward — or stall it — by either putting it on the agenda, or not.

The busiest councilmembers are Hugo Soto-Martínez and Adrin Nazarian, who each sit on nine committees, including some temporary “ad-hoc” ones. Councilmember Tim McOsker follows with seven committee assignments.

But the number of committee assignments isn’t necessarily the clearest indication of power. Katy Yaroslavsky serves on only five committees, but she chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, which edits and approves the mayor’s proposed budget before sending it to the full council for one of its most important annual votes.

At the bottom of the list is Price again, who sits on four committees, including as chair of the Committee on Economic Development.

Legislation

Another easy marker is the amount of legislation a council member authors.

At each meeting, dozens of pieces of legislation go before the council — some high-profile, others just to keep the lights on at City Hall (literally).

Rodriguez, despite her relatively low attendance, was at the top of the legislative list over the last year and a half, drafting 199 motions.

A good chunk were motions on whether to support or oppose bills at the state and federal level. Rodriguez also had the most ceremonial street namings of any council member, with 13.

Rodriguez pointed to more significant legislation, like an ordinance banning city workers from taking on additional gigs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as her proudest achievements.

After Rodriguez, McOsker was the second-most prolific author, with 178 pieces of legislation, followed by Traci Park with 163.

At the bottom were Price with 84 and Harris-Dawson with 90.

State of play

— HOMELESSNESS RISING: Homelessness, including those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, went up by 3.4% across the city compared with 2025. Unsheltered homelessness — those living outdoors or in their vehicles — was up 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases, dealing a fresh blow to Mayor Karen Bass as she runs for reelection.

— DISAPPEARING ACT: Bass’ press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.

— PLAY BALL: In 1936, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk. Nearly a century later, when kids spend half as much time outside as their parents did, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield wants to cut the obscure law from the books.

— THE ICE EFFECT: A new study from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute found that businesses within half a mile of nine ICE enforcement sites had 46,000 fewer customer visits and an estimated $3.16 million in accumulated revenue losses during the two weeks after enforcement activity.

— NEW HONCHO: Los Angeles schools Supt. Andrés E. Chait made a calm official entry into his new job Tuesday, emphasizing rising test scores and “a sense of belonging” that binds school communities.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program was at San Pedro Street Elementary School in Ysabel Jurado’s district, bringing 34 people indoors.
• On the docket next week: The Los Angeles City Council remains on recess next week.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

During the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, US President Donald Trump joked about running for a fourth term, despite the Constitution barring it. The event, which celebrates press freedom and honours journalism, came three months after the first was cancelled by a shooting.

United States President Donald Trump returned to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, three months after a gunman upended the event.

“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Trump said at the start of his speech on Friday, after a lengthy awards ceremony, during which several journalists, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, spoke.

The annual – and perennially controversial – event had originally been held in April, but it was swiftly derailed after a gunman attempted to storm the proceedings in an alleged effort to assassinate Trump.

“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better and the third time will be better yet,” Trump quipped, before raising his hands at the crowd and saying, “I’m only kidding.”

The US president is limited to two terms by the Constitution, but Trump has been facetiously floating the idea of running for a third time.

The rescheduled dinner took place in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, with a guest list of 700 people, much smaller compared with April’s botched gathering.

“It was an assault on our democracy itself; it was a very serious situation,” Trump said of the alleged assassination attempt.

He lauded some of his aides, including Pete Hegseth, Steve Miller and Tom Holman, for showing “bravery” during the incident.

“They were standing on tables, when most of you were under the tables,” he said.

Alleged gunman Cole Tomas Allen had stormed a security gate at the gala venue, the Washington Hilton, armed with guns and knives. He was accused by prosecutors of shooting and injuring a Secret Service officer before he was stopped.

Allen is facing federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president.

“Many people yelled, ‘Get down. Get down,’ which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking,” Trump said on Friday.

As journalists in attendance forced a muted laugh, Trump added: “She’s the only one who knew what that meant.”

Trump later used the event to rebuke political opponents, presenting his attacks as jokes. He called Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom “newscum”, questioned Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s intelligence, and pretended that someone in the audience was calling Illinois Governor JB Pritzker a “fat pig” to appear that he was not uttering the insult himself.

The US president also called top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer “Palestinian” as an insult.

Earlier in the evening, Trump entered the ballroom to polite applause.

“This is the largest gathering of people with Trump derangement syndrome,” he said, referring to journalists.

The US president has had a historically caustic relationship with the dinner, but this year, he touted the celebration this year, calling it a “very good thing” and a “HOT ticket”.

White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News, which was acquired by pro-Israel investor David Ellison last year, thanked Trump for his support, and for showing up for the second time in three months.

“Tonight our message is this: We are back,” she said. “We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”

Trump’s enthused attendance represented a sea change from his first term, beginning in 2017, when the newly elected president declared the soiree “dead” and declined to attend over the next four years.

Beyond Trump, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has long been a lightning rod for criticism among media professionals, with some journalists arguing that reporters should not be chummy with the politicians they cover. Calls for the dinner to be abandoned entirely only grew after the April incident.

President Donald Trump has ordered signs to be placed outside the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, to caution visitors about exhibits his administration views as “inaccurate”.

The order directs the Department of Interior to issue the warnings, and also to direct people about where they can find “accurate information regarding America’s history”.

The Trump administration has often accused the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest research museum, as well as other academic organisations of harbouring an anti-American bias.

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

The order on Friday – titled Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution – accuses museum leadership of not doing enough to celebrate America’s founders on the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, which took place on 4 July.

It says the museum’s leadership team “views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society”.

An accompanying White House statement, external also accused the museum of veering “toward extreme political activism, rooted in Marxism, to divide, dispirit, and discourage Americans”.

Democrats who oversee the Smithsonian condemned the order.

“This EO is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history,” congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, ranking member of the House Administration Committee, wrote on X.

“Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the President, but to the American people and so does our nation’s history.”

The executive order comes just days after Smithsonian director Anthea Hartig was grilled by Republican lawmakers in two congressional hearings, where the museum was accused of being “infected by a woke ideology that seeped into public displays, educational materials and planning documents”.

Earlier this month, the White House Domestic Policy Council released a scathing report, claiming that the museum “erases our heritage”.

Trump has set out to radically reshape American culture, which he says has been contaminated by “woke” left-wing ideology.

He has signed several orders that are intended to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes from the federal government – some of which led to legal challenges.

In March, he issued a separate order against the Smithsonian, directing it to “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology”.

The Smithsonian is largely funded by the federal government. Its museums offer free entry to some 15 to 30 million visitors each year. It operates 21 museums in Washington, Virginia and New York.

They include the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, the American Art Museum, the National Zoo and more than a dozen others.