US supreme court announces funding will run out this weekend
The US supreme court is expected to run out of federal funding on Saturday, according to Patricia McCabe, the court’s public information officer.
“At that point, if new appropriated funds do not become available, the Court will make changes in its operations to comply with the Anti Deficiency Act,” McCabe said in a statement, referring to the law that prohibits government agencies from spending money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.
“As a result, the Supreme Court Building will be closed to the public until further notice,” reads the statement. “The Building will remain open for official business. The Supreme Court will continue to conduct essential work such as hearing oral arguments, issuing orders and opinions, processing case filings, and providing police and building support needed for those operations.”
Key events
Closing summary
We are wrapping up our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump seemed more intent on brokering a peace deal than he was to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles during a White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that the US may need them for a future conflict. While Trump did not rule out providing the long-range missiles Zelenskyy seeks, Trump appeared cool to the prospect as he looked ahead to a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks. The Ukrainian leader was frank, telling Trump that Ukraine has thousands of drones ready for an offensive against Russian targets, but needs American missiles. More here.
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Donald Trump announced he had commuted the sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former New York representative and serial fabulist who had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison after a short-lived political career marked by outlandish fabrications and fraudulent scheming. In a Truth Social post, Trump called Santos “somewhat of a ‘rogue’” but expressed sympathy for the New York Republican. Santos was sentenced in April after pleading guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. More here.
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The US supreme court is expected to run out of federal funding on Saturday, according to Patricia McCabe, the court’s public information officer. “At that point, if new appropriated funds do not become available, the Court will make changes in its operations to comply with the Anti Deficiency Act,” McCabe said in a statement, referring to the law that prohibits government agencies from spending money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.
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The Trump administration asked the US supreme court to permit the deployment of national guard troops to Illinois, as the president pushes to expand the domestic use of the military in a growing number of Democratic-led cities. In an emergency filing, the justice department urged the court to overturn a lower court ruling that halted the deployment of several hundred national guard troops to the Chicago area. The district judge had raised doubts about the administration’s justification for sending troops, questioning its explanation in light of local conditions. A federal appeals court upheld the lower court’s decision on Thursday, keeping the deployment on hold while the legal challenge proceeds. More here.
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The White House budget director, Russell Vought, said that the Trump administration will freeze another $11bn worth of infrastructure projects in Democratic states due to the ongoing government shutdown. Vought said on social media the US army corps of engineers would pause work on “low priority” projects in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore. He said the projects could eventually be canceled. The White House office of management and budget (OMB) said Donald Trump “wants to reorient how the federal government prioritizes Army Corps projects”. More here.
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Donald Trump said today that a “drug-carrying submarine” was the target of the administration’s latest strike in the Caribbean. “Just so you understand, this was not an innocent group of people,” the president said. Secretary of state Marco Rubio didn’t respond directly to questions from reporters, but said the White House may issue more information on the strike later today. “These are terrorists, let’s be clear,” Rubio added. According to officials, the US seized survivors from the operation, believed to be at least the sixth strike in the waters off Venezuela since early September. Trump also said that the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, doesn’t want to “fuck around” with the US as tensions escalate between the two nations. More here.
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At least 11 people were taken into custody outside the Broadview Ice detention center in the Chicago area after heated confrontations between Illinois state police and protesters. Authorities had instructed demonstrators to remain in designated “protest zones”, but tensions escalated when officers moved to clear the roadway. According to the Chicago Tribune, at about 8am, protesters advanced toward the building. Within minutes, dozens of troopers equipped with helmets and batons moved in to push the crowd back. Officers tackled and dragged several individuals. Much of the clash was captured on video and posted to social media. At one point, protesters tried to intervene as a fellow demonstrator was detained. Later in the day, groups blew whistles at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entering and leaving the facility. More here.
Axios is reporting that Donald Trump doesn’t intend to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Two sources briefed on the meeting told the news outlet that Trump thinks providing Tomahawks could undermine diplomacy.
“Zelensky pushed hard on Tomahawks but Trump pushed back and showed no flexibility,” reads the report, citing anonymous sources.
Hours after Donald Trump hosted Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House today, where he appeared reluctant on supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles, Trump urged Ukraine and Russia to “stop the war immediately” and implied that Moscow keep territory it’s taken from Kyiv.
He made these remarks soon after arriving in Florida, where he’s spending the weekend.
“You go by the battle line wherever it is – otherwise it’s too complicated,” Trump told reporters.
Zelenskyy was hopeful on Friday even though he did not seal an agreement with Trump on the delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles.
“It’s good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no’, but for today, didn’t say ‘yes’,” Zelenskyy told NBC News’ Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker in an exclusive interview, which will air on Sunday.
Zelenskyy told NBC News that a Ukrainian military equipped with Tomahawk missiles is a real concern for Putin.
Russia is “afraid that United States can deliver Ukraine – I think that Putin [is] afraid that United States will deliver us Tomahawks. And I think that he [is] really afraid that we will use [them]”, he said.
Edward Helmore
A federal judge has lifted travel restrictions within the US for Mahmoud Khalil, allowing the Palestinian activist to speak at rallies and other events across the country while he fights the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him.
Khalil, who was freed from a Louisiana immigration jail in June after being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) amid student and activist roundups, had asked a federal magistrate judge to lift the restrictions that had limited his travel to New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, Louisiana and Michigan.
At a virtual hearing on Thursday, Alina Das, a lawyer for the former Columbia University graduate student who was ordered deported from the US last month, said her client “wants to travel for the very significant first amendment reasons that are at the bottom of this case”.
“He wants to speak to issues of public concern,” Das added, citing the constitutional right to free speech.
But Aniello DeSimone, a lawyer for the government, which opposes the move, said that Khalil “has not provided enough of a reason why he couldn’t attend these and other events telephonically”.
Magistrate judge Michael Hammer agreed to allow Khalil to travel, saying that he was not considered a flight risk and had not violated any of his release conditions.
Read the full story here:
US lawmakers are reacting to Donald Trump commuting the sentence of disgraced former Republican representative George Santos.
“If there’s one, single thing that could sink Trump’s popularity on Long Island, it’s commuting the universally reviled George Santos,” James Skoufis, New York state senator, said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had urged the White House to commute Santos’ sentence, thanked the president on Friday.
“He was unfairly treated and put in solitary confinement, which is torture!!,” she wrote in a post on Friday.
Donald Trump endorsed Ed Gallrein to replace representative Thomas Massie for Kentucky’s fourth congressional district, even though Gallrein has not yet entered the race.
In a Truth Social post Friday evening, Trump praised the former navy Seal for his service and said Gallrein “will fight tirelessly” on issues such as border security and crime.
“I hope Ed gets into the Race against Massie,” Trump wrote. “Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN. Should he decide to challenge Massie, Captain Ed Gallrein has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, ED, RUN.”
Massie told Politico that Gallrein is a “failed candidate and establishment hack”.
“After having been rejected by every elected official in the 4th District, Trump’s consultants clearly pushed the panic button with their choice of failed candidate and establishment hack Ed Gallrein,” Massie said. “Ed’s been begging them to pick him for over three months now.”
After Donald Trump announced he had commuted George Santos’s sentence, the former representative’s lawyer told the Associated Press that he was “very, very happy with the decision”.
“The defense team applauds President Trump for doing the right thing,” Andrew Mancilla told the AP. “The sentence was far too long.” He added that it is unclear at this point when Santos will be released.
On Monday, Santos published what he called a “passionate plea to President Trump”, praising him and pleading for “the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community”.
In an open letter published by the South Shore Press on Long Island, Santos said he had been in isolation in prison since late August while the FBI investigated a death threat against him and that the experience left him “in limbo, caught between uncertainty and silence”.
“Mr President, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness – for the chance to rebuild,” Santos wrote.
He acknowledged making mistakes in his past and said he has faced his share of consequences and takes full responsibility, but that nobody “deserves to be lost in the system, forgotten and unseen, enduring punishment far beyond what justice requires.
“I want nothing more than to begin again — to contribute, to serve, and to rebuild my life from the ashes of my past.”
White House to extend tariff-relief programs for US auto and engine production
The White House announced it would extend current tariff-relief programs for auto and engine production in the US. Trump is also setting a 25% tariff on imported medium- and heavy-duty trucks and parts starting 1 November, as well as a 10% tariff on imported buses.
Trump’s order makes automakers eligible for a credit equal to 3.75% of the suggested retail price for US-assembled vehicles through 2030 to offset import tariffs on parts.
The proclamation says that medium- and heavy-duty truck parts compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement “will not be subject to tariffs imposed in the Proclamation until the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with US Customs and Border Protection, establishes a process to apply tariffs to the non-US content of the parts”.
Mexico is the largest exporter of medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the United States. A study released in January said imports of those larger vehicles from Mexico have tripled since 2019.
Donald Trump says he has commuted the sentence of former Republican representative George Santos
Donald Trump said he had commuted the sentence of the disgraced Republican former representative George Santos, who is serving more than seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft charges.
“I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump posted on his social media platform.
Santos was sentenced in April after he lied extensively about his life story before and after entering the US Congress, where he was the first openly LGBTQ+ Republican elected to the body. He admitted to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his family members, to fund his winning campaign.
He also made up strings of fantastical stories about his life, identity and experiences.
“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump wrote.
Santos served in Congress barely a year before his House of Representatives colleagues ousted him in 2023.
The University of Virginia turned down an invitation from Donald Trump to sign onto his administration’s 10-page college compact that would overhaul university policies in return for preferential access to federal funding.
“We seek no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals. The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship,” Mahoney wrote in a message to the Department of Education released Friday afternoon. “A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education.”
Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is a proposed agreement that would impose restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and limit international student enrollment.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first to decline the deal last week, saying it would limit free speech and campus independence. Similar concerns were cited in rejections from Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. Those that have not yet announced a decision are Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas and Vanderbilt University.
US supreme court announces funding will run out this weekend
The US supreme court is expected to run out of federal funding on Saturday, according to Patricia McCabe, the court’s public information officer.
“At that point, if new appropriated funds do not become available, the Court will make changes in its operations to comply with the Anti Deficiency Act,” McCabe said in a statement, referring to the law that prohibits government agencies from spending money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.
“As a result, the Supreme Court Building will be closed to the public until further notice,” reads the statement. “The Building will remain open for official business. The Supreme Court will continue to conduct essential work such as hearing oral arguments, issuing orders and opinions, processing case filings, and providing police and building support needed for those operations.”
The Catholic bishops who chair key committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) denounced the Trump administration’s new initiatives expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) measures, warning that IVF is immoral.
“Though we are grateful that aspects of the Administration’s policies announced Thursday intend to include comprehensive and holistic restorative reproductive medicine, which can help ethically to address infertility and its underlying causes, we strongly reject the promotion of procedures like IVF that instead freeze or destroy precious human beings and treat them like property,” bishops Robert Barron, Kevin Rhoades and Daniel Thomas said in a joint statement on Friday.
“Without diminishing the dignity of people born through IVF,” they continued, “we must recognize that children have a right to be born of a natural and exclusive act of married love, rather than a business’s technological intervention. And harmful government action to expand access to IVF must not also push people of faith to be complicit in its evils.”
The comments come after the Trump administration announced on Thursday that it is urging US employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover IVF and other infertility treatments, cutting a deal with the drug manufacturer EMD Serono to lower the cost of one of its fertility drugs and list the drug on the government website TrumpRx.
