dailynewsnblog
Key events
Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll spend most of his day in closed-door meetings. At 3:30pm ET he’ll welcome the 2025 Little League Softball World Series winners to the White House. That event is currently closed to the press, but we’ll keep you updated if anything changes.
Ramon Antonio Vargas
Rather than continue fixating on the 2020 election defeat that ended his first presidency, Donald Trump could instead “do something positive”, including resolving the US war in Iran, Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman said in an interview on Sunday.
“I don’t know why the president is dragging up all this stuff,” Fetterman remarked on CNN’s State of the Union, three days after Trump dedicated a televised, primetime address to claims about Chinese meddling in the 2020 White House race that he lost to Joe Biden. “You’re the president. Do something positive – and you are talking about 2020; that’s been settled over six years ago.
“It’s deeply unhelpful and that distracts [from] important things, especially like the Iranian war right now.”
His comments to CNN came amid a stretch that could prove to be an inflection point in his political career. On Wednesday, he said he would consider leaving the Democratic party if ever it became “the anti-Israel party”, a comment that he delivered after more than 100 US House lawmakers voted in favor of halting Israeli military aid over incursions into Gaza and Lebanon.
Fetterman has emerged as a prominent advocate of Israel among Democrats since he joined the Senate in 2023. You can read the full story here:
Nato member Bulgaria will seek parliamentary approval later today for up to eight US tanker aircraft to be stationed at a military airport in the country.
The government will ask parliament to approve a request by Washington to station tanker planes at the Bezmer military facility, about 260 km (160 miles) southeast of the capital Sofia, to support US military actions in the Middle East, Bulgaria’s prime minister Rumen Radev said.
A move earlier this year to station the aircraft, used mainly for airborne refuelling of other aircraft, at a civilian airport in Sofia without prior parliamentary approval, sparked controversy and the planes left last month.
“The problem was that the military planes were based at a civilian airport in close proximity to Sofia. That is why we proposed to our allies to occupy military airfields,” Radev told an annual conference of Bulgarian Ambassadors in Sofia.
Vice-President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, on Sunday announced the birth of their fourth child, the first born to a sitting vice-president in more than 150 years.
Born on Sunday, Alec Neel Vance joins older siblings Ewan, nine; Vivek, six; and Mirabel, four. Vance announced the birth on social media with a statement signed by him and his wife.
“We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning. Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the statement said.
You can keep up with all the latest developments in the US-Israel war on Iran in our Middle East live blog here:
Vivian Ho
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped once again on Monday as the US and Iran launched more attacks, AP reports.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is now back to $4, almost an entire dollar more than the average price a year ago at $3.14 a gallon, according to motor club federation AAA.
Average gas prices reached over $4 gallon at the start of the conflict at the end of March, but dipped in mid-June and continued to fall after US and Iran reached an interim deal.
Trump says Qatari-gifted Air Force One will get ‘maxed out’ upgrades
The US president, Donald Trump, has said the Qatari-donated jet that serves as an Air Force One plane will soon be sent away for “maxed out” upgrades, as concerns grow over the plane’s security features.
Trump started flying aboard the Boeing luxury jet on 1 July after accepting the $400m plane as an “unconditional” gift from the Qatari government last year.
But concerns about the plane came into focus earlier this month when the president unexpectedly flew from Turkey to England onboard the older Air Force One, rather than the new, Qatari-gifted aircraft he had used to travel to the Nato summit in Ankara.
Trump was asked about whether the Qatari plane lacked missile-defense capabilities as he returned home from the World Cup final in New Jersey on Sunday. He told reporters:
“Well, it has – it has a lot, and you know it has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out. So they’re going to be sending it, and they’ll have it be maxed out.” “It’ll take about a month,” Trump added, suggesting the Qatari jet could get additional defensive capabilities to enhance its security.
Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the new jet lacks the same defensive countermeasures as the older model, including antimissile capabilities, citing anonymous sources.
The coverage prompted a leak investigation and led the Trump administration to issue subpoenas to several of the Times’ journalists in what was condemned as an attempt to punish the outlet for its reporting and to intimidate independent media organisations.
The subpoenas, some of which were delivered to reporters at their homes, sought to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan. The Times has since filed a motion to quash the subpoenas served by the justice department.
Trump administration activates dormant court for ‘alien terrorist’ deportations
In other news, the Trump administration has filed a first-ever petition to a secretive and dormant court created 30 years ago to consider government requests to deport so-called “alien terrorists” from the US.
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) was established in 1996 but had never received a petition until Wednesday, when the US justice department filed an application seeking the removal of an individual whose name is withheld from the single-page document posted on the court’s website.
Joan Ericksen, the chief judge of the five-member court, said in a written response to the petition that a hearing was held on Thursday during which the court had “questions about the nexus that the government alleges between the actions of the respondent and the specific sections and subsections it invokes with respect to those actions”.
Ericksen, a federal judge in Minnesota, wrote: “The answers persuaded the court that the government could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration.” She directed the justice department to provide more information by Wednesday. You can read more here:
Maine Democrats rally around Troy Jackson to replace Graham Platner in crucial Senate race
Troy Jackson, a former state legislator, moved into a strong position to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic candidate in the crucial Maine Senate race after several of his opponents dropped out over the weekend.
Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, withdrew yesterday morning, saying Democrats didn’t have “a day to waste in unifying” around the goal of defeating the state’s longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins in the November midterm elections.
Nirav Shah, former director of Maine’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also dropped out – and endorsed Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from the northern part of the state, in the evening.
He was shortly followed by Dan Kleban, the co-founder of Maine Beer Company, and Jordan Wood, a progressive who worked as the chief of staff to former Representative Katie Porter of California, both of whom also endorsed Jackson.
Democrats are scrambling to regroup after their initial nominee, Graham Platner, suspended his campaign earlier this month after a series of scandals that included a woman accusing him of sexual assault, an allegation he denies.
Maine is considered a must-win state in the Democratic party’s mission of taking control of the Senate.
Jackson rallied broad support at the county-level meetings this weekend when party committees across the state began choosing delegates for a nominating convention that will meet on 25 July in Bangor to select a new candidate.
Though not legally binding, according to POLITICO, over two-thirds of the 601 delegates have now committed to voting for Jackson at that statewide convention next weekend.
Jackson, 58, was elected to the state legislature in 2002 and ultimately became the president of Maine’s senate. He left office in 2024 due to term limits. Jackson then unsuccessfully ran to be the Democratic nominee for governor earlier this year with Platner’s backing, but was unsuccessful.
