Judge vacates administrations policies, finding actions of ICE and another government arm ‘arbitrary and capricious’

A federal ⁠judge in California vacated the ⁠Trump administration’s ​nationwide policies expanding arrests at immigration courthouses and the duration for detaining noncitizens in short-term facilities, finding the actions of US Immigration ⁠and Customs Enforcement and another government arm “arbitrary and capricious”.

US district judge P Casey Pitts of the northern district of California on Tuesday vacated ICE’s ⁠policies that had rescinded previous strictures on arrests at immigration courthouses and allowed detainees to ​be held in short-term cells for up ‌to 72 hours. He ‌did the same for a similar policy undertaken by the US Department of Justice’s ‌executive office for immigration review that removed limits on courthouse arrests.

The 71-page ruling, issued in a case brought by an asylum seeker arrested upon departing a routine hearing at a San Francisco immigration court, struck down key parts of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Judge Pitts, appointed by Joe Biden, in effect reinstated Biden-era policies ‌that limited arrests at immigration courthouses to narrow circumstances and capped detentions in short-term facilities to 12 hours.

China’s LineShine debuts at number one in Top500 – a list sometimes viewed as a national measure of global tech prowess

A supercomputer in China now outranks its US counterparts as the world’s most powerful. It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess.

The LineShine computer in Shenzhen displaced top-ranked US computer El Capitan in the Top500 rankings released on Tuesday. It was LineShine’s debut on the list.

China’s LineShine differs from other high-performance computers in that it runs entirely on conventional computer chips (CPUs), instead of the graphics processors (GPUs), commonly used for AI. It requires about 42.2 megawatts of electricity to operate, according to the list.

A young south-eastern Louisiana man recently became the first person in his region to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease, clearing the way for him to continue pursuing his dream of a career as a commercial pilot, according to his medical team.

Daniel Cressy’s successful completion of curative gene therapy at Manning Family Children’s hospital in New Orleans on Monday generated a measure of optimism within his state, which produces more cases of sickle cell disease per capita than any other in the US, according to the medical center.

A statement attributed to Cressy, 23, said his story embodied “overcoming what seemed impossible” – and hoped it would be “inspirational for a lot of people”.

Donald Trump may be the head of the Republican Party, but when it comes to the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune is still in charge.

Trump, who will attend lunch with Senate Republicans at the US Capitol on Wednesday, is growing tired of hearing “no” from the Senate leader as he pushes certain controversial priorities, according to people familiar with his thinking.

But Thune is sitting on as much support as any leader could with less than five months until the midterms, and is surrounded by some emboldened colleagues who are more willing than they have been in years to take on the Republican administration.

Outside Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s primary night party, four men on the sidewalk were dressed in full neon sequins, trying to get the party started. Inside, the bar had barely opened.

Espaillat spent 20 years trying to get to Washington and another 10 years in Congress. He arrived to give his concession speech and left in under 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the real party was going on about three miles away. That’s where Zohran Mamdani was completing his victory lap of three celebrations with candidates who likely would not have gotten near Congress without his endorsements, just a year after he stunned the political world by beating Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary.

A new data investigation says the paper of record increasingly framed transgender rights as a debate instead of a lived reality.

A new data investigation argues that The New York Times sharply changed the way it covers transgender people beginning in 2022, moving from rights-based framing toward more skeptical, conflict-driven coverage that elevated opponents of transgender rights and gave less prominence to transgender people themselves.

As The Advocate reported in May, an Assigned Media analysis found that the Times produced more transgender-related coverage than any other outlet examined but was the least likely to quote transgender people or trans advocacy organizations in stories primarily focused on transgender issues.

The report reviewed coverage from January 1 to April 25 across 10 major news outlets. Assigned Media found that the Times published 60 news stories centered mainly on transgender issues during that period, but only 12 included quotes from transgender people or representatives of transgender advocacy organizations, a rate of 20 percent.

Few qualities carry more weight for Donald Trump than loyalty, and few aides embody it as fully as his executive assistant, Natalie Harp.

A former TV presenter, Harp is a near-constant presence at Trump’s side — encouraging his Oval Office redesigns, typing up his Truth Social tirades and printing out online articles, a role that has earned her the nickname “the human printer.” She also leaves behind admiring notes for him to discover. Her devotion is so pronounced that the 80-year-old Republican once declared: “She’ll never leave me.”

These details about one of the most influential White House aides were revealed by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

The Senate on Tuesday voted to block U.S. military action in Iran for the first time as the war approaches its fourth month.

The war powers resolution passed by a vote of 50–48. Sen. John Fetterman, again, was the lone Democrat to vote in the negative.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, who was in his home state for a visit by President Trump to a Mack truck plant in the Lehigh Valley, was absent.

Four Republicans — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — supported the measure.

Much of France was set to experience temperatures of around 40C on Tuesday, after records were shattered on Monday

Forty people have drowned in France over the past days as they sought to cool down to escape record heat, the prime minister said on Tuesday, as a heatwave swept across much of Europe.

Speaking ahead of an emergency meeting on the heatwave, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said: "A sad scourge when it comes to drownings, as the latest figures just reported to us show 40 deaths since June 18, most of them young people."

Across France, people have been jumping into canals and rivers to cool off. French sports minister Marina Ferrari said she understood the urge to escape the heat but warned against swimming in unauthorized or dangerous areas.

Ohio will lose 51,000 jobs and $5.3 billion from the state economy in 2029, according to a new analysis.

That’s the effect that cuts to Medicaid and food assistance under a massive 2025 spending law will have when they’re fully phased in. It’s also the consequence of Republicans allowing Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire at the end of the last year, according to a Commonwealth Fund analysis which was published last week.

Those losses come despite $200 million in rural health money Ohio will get from a fund that Republicans built into the spending bill. The measure was meant to quell concerns that Medicaid cuts could close rural hospitals, the analysis said.