Performing arts venue takes down references to a ‘Trump Kennedy Center’ in compliance with judge’s ruling

The Kennedy Center has removed Trump’s name from its website after a US district judge’s order last month to remove the US president’s name from the performing arts venue.

The removal of Trump’s name from the website on Monday came just days before a deadline instructed by the center’s general counsel to remove all references to the president by 12 June.

In a memo reported by the Washington Post last Thursday, the center’s general counsel referred to US district judge Christopher Cooper’s order to take down all references to a “Trump Kennedy Center”, telling employees: “To comply with this order, you must immediately change email signatures, letterheads, and other documents to reflect the name such as ‘The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center’.

Prediction market apps are doubling down on paid content creators denying election results, asking them to remove posts or lose sponsorship

Popular online prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket will prohibit paid creators and affiliates from denying election results, NPR reports, as online creators spread misinformation about California’s election.

In a social media post, Bobby Allyn, NPR technology reporter, reports: “Kalshi now says it prohibits paid creators from calling into question the integrity or accuracy of an election, legal ruling or official determination in connection with an election.

“Polymarket now says any affiliate post denying an election result would violate their terms of service stipulating that creators do not spread false and misleading information,” he added. “The company says it has asked that posts from two of its paid affiliates lose its sponsorship.”

A flesh-eating parasite that burrows into cattle and other livestock has some California ranchers concerned about a possible outbreak in the state after multiple cases were confirmed in Texas and New Mexico.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Monday that five cases of New World screwworm, or NWS, have been detected in Texas and New Mexico within the span of a week. Three calves and a goat in Texas were confirmed to have NWS, while the first case in a dog was detected in Lea County in New Mexico, the USDA said. The latter is believed to be an isolated case, but the USDA said it is investigating other animals while also reviewing the dog’s movement history, as the dog may have been in Mexico.

Todd Blanche’s nomination to be permanently made the attorney general marks the apex of a gamble from a man who bet everything on representing Donald Trump and became one of his most steadfast and punishing enforcers.

Trump announced the news at the White House on Monday. The nomination will require Senate confirmation to become permanent.

Blanche was a relatively unknown lawyer until he joined Trump’s legal team in March 2023, just after Trump was indicted for the first time in a New York state case involving a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. Blanche, a registered Democrat until a few years ago, resigned a lucrative partnership at a Wall Street law firm to represent the president, essentially betting everything on Trump at a moment when Trump faced mounting criminal charges and the walls seemed to be closing in.

President dramatically raised cost of visa for highly skilled workers in executive order last year

A US judge has invalidated Donald Trump’s $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visa applications, ruling it an unlawful tax that violated federal administrative law and the constitution.

US district judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the 42-page ruling in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging a fee Trump announced in September that dramatically raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas.. The ruling vacated the sweeping fee, which was a 20-to-50 fold increase on existing rates, and the Trump administration is widely expected to appeal.

In his ruling, Sorokin’s found that the fee amounted to a tax, rather than a regulatory restriction. Since the constitution gives Congress, not the president, the exclusive power to levy taxes, Trump lacked the authority to impose it.

As the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, a new poll finds.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research highlights many Americans’ feeling of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. It presents a jarring contrast as communities around the country commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary. 

Only about one-quarter of Americans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world, the new poll found, while 44% say it’s one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others. About 3 in 10 say there are better countries than the U.S., an increase from 19% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016.

Israel and Iran traded fire early Monday in their first attacks since the U.S. struck a ceasefire with Tehran two months ago. Hours later, Iran’s military said that it would stop offensive operations.

The renewed hostilities threatened to drag the Middle East back into a full-scale war.

The war, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28 with strikes on Iran, has shaken the global economy, driven energy prices up around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Officials have been unable to turn the April ceasefire into a deal to permanently end the conflict.

Meta’s former head of global affairs says executives pivoted right in some cases for ‘rather more self-interested’ reasons

Silicon Valley companies including Meta have decided to embrace MAGA politics, some for “rather more self-interested” reasons, the former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has said.

Clegg, who spent nearly seven years at Meta as the head of global affairs, told The Rest is Money podcast that it felt like “a very good time for me to move on” when he left the company in March 2025, three months into the second Trump administration.

Executives who had previously shunned politics pivoted right; the products themselves “changed utterly: from being human-centric to being much more about content, often synthetic content, algorithmically recommended to you”, Clegg said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly presented Trump with option to buy islands housing Diego Garcia base

The White House is reportedly considering a plan that would see the U.S. make a deal to purchase the Chagos Islands after Donald Trump’s ambitions of seeing the U.S. take control of Greenland ended in failure.

The president has repeatedly threatened to seize or annex several nations and territories, including Canada and Venezuela, which he has potentially claimed as 51st states. He has also delivered similar threats to Panama and Cuba, with U.S. naval vessels building up forces throughout the Caribbean and launching a campaign of military strikes against small boats that the president claims are trafficking drugs.

His latest alleged plan follows delays in U.K. legislation that would complete the country’s cessation of the territory to the east African nation Mauritius after withdrawal of U.S. support in January. Trump called the treaty organizing the cessation of territory “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY” at the time.

Mormon leaders, military veterans and elected officials reacted with anger to a new Department of Defense policy that does not consider The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a Christian religion as part of a wider effort to cut down the U.S. military’s list of recognized faiths.

“The Pentagon’s decision to list The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apart from other Christian faiths is wrong and needs to be corrected,” Republican Rep. Mike Kennedy, of heavily Mormon Utah, wrote on X on Sunday.