Union representative concerned about safety as workers rush to finish repainting DC pool before 250th celebrations

Workers renovating one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic sites in a project ordered by Donald Trump may be risking their safety as they race to finish on time for the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations, a union monitoring the site has warned.

Trade union scrutiny has focused on the reflecting pool on the US capital’s National Mall – scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream speech” – after it was drained of water and fenced off from the public to allow contractors the chance to upgrade it by 4 July.

The pool, a Washington landmark since it was dug in 1922, is currently the site of frenetic repair activity, its usual watery surface occupied instead by vehicle and work equipment. Tourists visiting the area have found their view obscured by black tarpaulin.

The Senate official said the GOP bill needs to be reworked to comply with jurisdictional issues.

A GOP bill seeking $1 billion for the Secret Service to help finance Donald Trump’s White House ballroom is in jeopardy as it faces pushback from a top Senate official.

The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said Saturday that the budget bill, which aims to fund ICE and Border Patrol alongside $1 billion to help fund the ballroom, needs to be rewritten to account for jurisdictional issues.

The parliamentarian wrote that the bill would be subject to a 60-vote threshold to pass, meaning it can’t move forward with a simple majority, unlike similar bills advanced using budget reconciliation.

The American worker is on a productivity tear and it may have more to do with a surge in working from home than the effects of AI, according to a Stanford economist.

For the past five years, the output for non-farm businesses has increased by a sizable 2% per year, The Economist reported citing statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is a marked increase from the 1% productivity growth per year that defined most of the 2010s, and a trend that has taken even Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell by surprise.

Yet, while the hype around AI over the past several years makes it a logical candidate for the main driver behind the productivity boom, Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economics professor who is known for explaining the Great Resignation of the early 2020s, says it’s more likely work-from-home policies since the pandemic are fueling the trend.

A drone strike targeted the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah nuclear power plant Sunday, setting an electrical generator ablaze on its perimeter and again straining the shaky ceasefire in the Iran war.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which caused no radiological release nor injuries, authorities in the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi, said. However, suspicion immediately fell on Iran, which has been increasingly threatening the UAE over recent days as the country hosted Israeli Iron Dome missile defenses and troops during the war.

The attack comes as Iran still has a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway where a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passed through before the war, disrupting global energy supplies. Meanwhile, America continues to block Iranian ports in response as negotiations to solidify the ceasefire have failed to advance.

The World Health Organization declared the Ebola disease outbreak caused by a rare virus in Congo and neighboring Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday, after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths.

The WHO said the outbreak does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency like COVID-19, and advised against the closure of international borders.

The WHO said on X that a laboratory-confirmed case has also been reported in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, which is about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the outbreak’s epicenter in the eastern province of Ituri, suggesting a possible wider spread. It said the patient had visited Ituri and that other suspected cases have also been reported in North Kivu province, which is one of Congo’s most populous and borders Ituri.

Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.

Recent comments by Donald Trump that arms sales to Taiwan are a “very good negotiating chip” in the United States’ dealings with China are heightening anxieties on the island democracy that Beijing claims as its own.

Trump made the comment in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier that aired right after the U.S. president wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China on Friday.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, to be retaken by force if necessary. The U.S., like all countries that have formal ties with Beijing, doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country but has been the island’s strongest backer and arms supplier.

Trump is now suggesting that is open to negotiation.

At least 80 deaths have been reported in Congo’s new Ebola disease outbreak in the eastern Ituri province, authorities said, as health workers raced Saturday to intensify screening and contact tracing to contain the disease. Officials first announced the outbreak on Friday, with 65 deaths and 246 suspected cases.

Meanwhile, Associated Press journalists in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, interviewed locals who recounted their fears and constant burials.

“Every day, people are dying ... and this has been going on for about a week. In a single day, we bury two, three, or even more people,” said Jean Marc Asimwe, a resident of Bunia. “At this point, we don’t really know what kind of disease it is,” said Asimwe.

The Trump administration on Saturday allowed a sanctions waiver to lapse that had previously allowed countries including India to buy Russian seaborne ​oil after a month-long extension aimed at easing oil supply shortages and ‌high prices due to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Parents had sued to halt law, saying they had the right to make decisions regarding the health of their children

A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked a law banning gender-transition treatments for minors in the state.

The state district judge Carl Folsom III granted an injunction requested by the parents of two teenagers who want to continue gender-transition treatment with medicines. Folsom’s decision halts the enforcement of a recently approved state law that banned such treatments.

In a ruling Friday, the judge sided with the teens’ parents, who sued to halt the law, saying they had the right to make decisions regarding the health of their children, according to court documents and a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs.

Democrats once hailed Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) as the party’s poster child: A plain-spoken, hoodie-wearing populist who appealed not just to those in his party but to independents and even some Republicans.

Lately, though, some Democrats say he’s appealing to Republicans and turning his back on his party with remarks defending Trump and attacking his party over their criticisms of the White House.

As the Pennsylvania senator increasingly clashes with progressives and breaks with his fellow Democrats on a string of issues, some in the party are comparing him to former Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), another Democrat who some in the party say boosted Republicans while hurting his side.

Taiwan asserted its sovereignty Saturday after Donald Trump warned against Taiwanese self-determination following the American leader’s two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Taiwan “is a sovereign and independent democratic nation, and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry’s remarks come as a swift rebuke against Trump, who said Friday that he was “not looking to have somebody go independent” when asked about whether the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s rescue in the event of an invasion by China.