Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch told lawmakers today the Trump administration is scrapping
plans for nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.
The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them.
“The reasons for the fund, I think, were remain as important as they were before, but we”
are not moving forward with the fund. The fund would have compensated President Trump's allies who believed they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted. Many Republican senators had pushed the administration to impose limits or scrap the idea altogether.
Two controversial U.S. Senate hopefuls were in Washington DC today to rally party support. President Trump met with Ken Paxton, a Texas Republican who's fended off criminal indictments,
whistleblower allegations and an impeachment.
President Democrats met with Graham Platner, a Democrat from Maine whose controversies include past Reddit posts and a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol. President Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a long history of working together, including starting the Iran war. But NPR's Franco Ordoni has reports the relationship has strained over whether to keep up military
“pressure or look for a diplomatic solution.”
After Israel launched a new offensive in southern Lebanon, Friday, Trump called Netanyahu and told him to call off the attacks. Which were upending negotiations with Iran, Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says Trump's clearly frustrated with the Prime Minister. The subtext here is, look what you got me into.
You persuaded me that at a minimum, the conditions for regime change would be laid as a consequence of what I've done. Trump has to be beside himself with frustration and how to anger. It's just the latest example of how hard it has been for Trump working with Israel when they have different security objectives, Franco Ordoni has NPR news.
The Trump administration is dismantling a deep sea observation system that provides data to scientists and appears Nate Rod reports. The Ocean Observatory's initiative has provided real-time data on the world's oceans for a decade. It's made up of more than 900 scientific instruments.
Trump calibrated to withstand the intense pressure of the deep sea, and its help researchers better understand marine ecosystems, ocean currents, and the effects of global warming. Starting this month, the National Science Foundation says it will begin removing instruments
from the system, which costs nearly $50 million annually to operate.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, recommended closing the system and its project 2025 playbook, calling it a source of "climate alarmism," Nate Rod and PR News. Primarys are being held today in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. This is NPR News.
President Trump says he will attend the rescheduled White House Correspondence Association Dinner on July 24th. The event was postponed after a shooting incident in April, federal prosecutors charged a man with attempting to assassinate President Trump at the Gala. In Florida, a proposal to reduce property taxes will go before voters this November from
Member Station WFSU Tristan Wood reports it was championed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Under the plan, homeowners whose primary residence has a taxable value of $150,000 or less would pay property taxes only for schools beginning next year. That exemption would rise to $250,000 in 2028, and increase with inflation after that. The voters, including sponsor Republican Senator Brian Avila, say the measure would force
local governments to better prioritize spending.
“I think what this will force is local government officials to actually really do right by”
the residents in terms of looking at their budgets and prioritizing their spending. It will need support from 60% of state voters to be approved. Over a dozen states are exploring reducing or eliminating property taxes in recent years. For NPR News, I'm Tristan Wood and Tallahassee. Thousands of people in New Zealand have attended one of the world's best-known steam punk festivals.
The four-day event in rural Amaru is a celebration of Victorian aesthetics mixed with science fiction. Unique competitions include tea pot racing and parasol dueling. The parallel universe asks what the age of the steam engine might have produced if it had continued to the present day.
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