U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that there will be “very severe consequences” if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop his war in Ukraine after their Friday summit in Alaska, though he did not say what those consequences might be.
Trump’s comment came after a virtual meeting with European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who told the group that Putin “is bluffing” about seeking peace. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the leaders had a “constructive and good” discussion with Trump.
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After Trump ramps up DC law enforcement presence some residents protest
Residents in one Washington neighborhood lined up Wednesday to protest the increased presence after the White House said the number of National Guard troops in the capital would ramp up and federal officers would be on the streets around the clock.
After law enforcement set up a vehicle checkpoint along the busy 14th Street Northwest corridor, hecklers shouted, “Go home, fascists” and other insults. Some protesters stood at the intersection before the checkpoint and urged drivers to turn away from it.
The action intensified a few days after the president’s unprecedented announcement that his administration would take over the city’s police department for at least a month.
▶ Read more about the larger law enforcement presence and protests
Brazil health minister says his government’s program criticized by Rubio ‘will survive’
Alexandre Padilha made the comments via social media shortly after the Trump administration stepped up sanctions targeting a Cuban government program that sends Cuban doctors abroad, including to Brazil. U.S. officials say the initiative amounts to forced labor.
“This program saves lives and it is approved by those who matter most; the Brazilian people,” Padilha said of Mais Médicos (meaning “More Doctors” in Portuguese).
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he was imposing visa restrictions on an unspecified number of Brazilian, Grenadan and other officials due to what he described as “complicit third-country government officials and individuals responsible for Cuba’s exploitative labor export program.”
Brazil’s government says Mais Médicos currently has almost 25,000 medical professionals operating in Brazil but did not provide figures on how many of those are Cuban.
What to know about the US-Russia summit in Alaska
It’s happening where East meets West, in a place familiar to both countries as a Cold War front line of missile defense, radar outposts and intelligence gathering.
Whether it can lead peace in Ukraine after more than 3 1/2 years of war remains to be seen.
It takes place Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson outside Anchorage, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning. It played a key role in the Cold War in monitoring and deterring the Soviet Union.
It’s Putin’s first U.S. trip since 2015, for the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Because the U.S. isn’t a member of the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for Putin on war crimes accusations, it’s under no obligation to arrest him.
▶ Read more on things to know about the meeting between Trump and Putin
— Dasha Litvinova and Michelle L. Price
Judge weighs whether Trump violated federal law by deploying National Guard to Southern California
The three-day trial over whether the administration broke the law by sending the Guard Guard troops to accompany immigration agents on raids concluded Wednesday.
California has argued that the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits military enforcement of domestic laws.
Lawyers for the administration said the law does not apply because Trump called up the Guard under an authority that allows deployment if “the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
Federal and military officials were called to testify, and the trial’s third day largely focused on weedy arguments about the 1878 law and whether the court even had a role in determining the limits of presidential power.
Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard members and later 700 Marines to Los Angeles in June after protests in response to immigration raids around the city.
NY attorney general sues Zelle’s parent company after Trump administration drops similar case
Letitia James, a Democrat, sued Early Warning Services in state court, alleging that it failed to protect users from fraud by not including critical safety features in Zelle’s design.
Earlier this year the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau abandoned a similar case after Trump fired its leader and gutted the agency.
In a statement, James’ office noted that its suit came after the CFPB dropped its lawsuit following a “change in the federal administration.”
“No one should be left to fend for themselves after falling victim to a scam,” James said. “I look forward to getting justice for the New Yorkers who suffered because of Zelle’s security failures.”
Zelle called the lawsuit “a political stunt to generate press, not progress.”
James has been a leading antagonist of Trump and sued him dozens of times. Last week AP and other outlets reported that the Justice Department subpoenaed her as part of an investigation into whether she violated Trump’s civil rights.
Leaving a top administration post? Trump may have an ambassadorship for you
Diplomacy may be soft power, but in this administration it’s also a soft landing.
National security adviser Mike Waltz was nominated as U.N. ambassador after he mistakenly added a journalist to a Signal chat discussing military plans.
Then Trump tapped IRS Commissioner Billy Long as envoy to Iceland after Long contradicted administration messaging less than two months on the job.
And last weekend he named State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as deputy U.N. representative after she struggled to gel with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team.
The appointments can be viewed as consolation prizes for leaving a high-profile post following rocky tenures. They also reflect the degree to which Trump is trying to keep loyalists close, even if their earlier placements were ill-fitting.
Breaking with his former reality TV show “The Apprentice,” Trump is not telling his appointees “You’re fired!” but instead offering them another way to stay in his administration.
▶ Read more about ambassadorships for administration officials
Mexico says 26 capos sent to US were requested by Trump administration, not part of tariff talks
Mexico sent the alleged cartel figures to face justice in the United States because the administration requested them and Mexico did not want them to continue running their illicit businesses from Mexican prisons, officials said Wednesday.
The mass transfer was not, however, part of wider negotiations as Mexico seeks to avoid higher tariffs threatened by Trump, the officials said.
“These transfers are not only a strategic measure to ensure public safety but also reflect a firm determination to prevent these criminals from continuing to operate from within prisons and to break up their networks of influence,” Mexican Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said in a news conference on Wednesday.
The prisoners were wanted by U.S. authorities for their roles in drug trafficking and other crimes. In February 29 other cartel leaders were sent to the U.S.
▶ Read more about the cartel figures being expelled from Mexico
Brazil’s Lula announces $5.5 billion in credits for exporters hit by US tariffs
The “Sovereign Brazil” plan also contains other measures in response to 50% tariffs imposed by Trump on several products from the South American nation.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the plan, which includes a bill to be sent to Congress, is a first step to help exporters.
The other measures include postponing tax charges for companies affected by the tariffs, providing 5 billion reais ($930,000) in tax credits to small- and medium-size companies until the end of 2026 and expanding access to insurance against cancelled orders.
The plan also incentivizes public purchases of items that could not be exported to the United States.
Brazil’s government is also granting a one-year extension of tax credits for companies that import items so they can produce goods for exportation.
Trump rolls back Biden-era antitrust order
The president has revoked an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that was intended to better foster competition through stronger antitrust enforcement.
Trump’s new order nullifies the “Promoting Competition in the American Economy” action of 2021.
The move comes as part of a broader push to promote deregulation while watering down — or wiping out entirely — anti-monopoly protections.
Guard troops expected to ramp up DC missions Thursday
National Guard officials say they expect troops to start doing more missions in Washington that day because orders and plans are still being developed.
The White House forecast an increased presence of troops Wednesday night. A Guard spokesman said the significant increase was at the Guard’s armory, where troops are staging.
The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the planning process, said the numbers are getting closer to the 800 troops that the Trump announced Monday that he was activating.
Neither Army nor District of Columbia National Guard officials have been able to describe the training backgrounds of the troops who have reported for duty so far.
While some Guard members are military police, and thus better suited to a law-enforcement mission, others likely hold jobs that would have offered little training in dealing with civilians or law enforcement.
Make space great again?
Trump has signed an executive order meant to reduce and streamline regulations in an effort to make the U.S. commercial space industry more competitive.
It calls for the creation of an Office of Space Commerce within the Secretary of Transportation.
The order also seeks to “enhance American greatness in space by enabling a competitive launch marketplace” that can “substantially increase” commercial space activities in the next five years.
It directs authorities to ease requirements for commercial license and permit appeals for U.S.-based space operators and to reduce or eliminate many environmental reviews.
Trump administration ordered to restore some withheld grant funding to UCLA
U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled that the administration must restore millions of dollars in National Science Foundation grants to the University of California, Los Angeles.
Lin ruled late Tuesday that the research grants were suspended for reasons she had already ruled “arbitrary and capricious” and gave the administration until Aug. 19 to show compliance or explain why it has not restored the funding.
It was not immediately clear how much could be returned to UCLA. The school’s chancellor said last week that the administration has pulled $584 million in grants from various federal agencies. The judge’s ruling applies specifically to NSF grants.
The funding was frozen as part of a wider pressure campaign targeting universities that Trump says are out of step with his political agenda.
Trump administration fires all members of transportation advisory committees
The Transportation Department dismissed all the members of its various Federal Advisory Committees as part of a broad effort to remake the groups of industry, labor and government leaders who helped draft new regulations and proposals.
The department said it came in response to a presidential executive order. Labor groups expressed concern.
A DOT spokesperson said many of the committees “have not held a single meeting in over a year, while others have not produced recommendations or advisory reports. Worse, some committees have lost sight of the mission, and have been overrun with individuals’ whose sole focus is their radical DEI and climate agenda.”
The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department coalition of unions said the committees play an important role helping ensure safety at agencies like the Federal Railroad Administration. A spokeswoman said “it is crucial that all those affected by safety issues are represented.”
Federal agents will patrol the streets 24/7 in Washington, White House says
Officials said the number of National Guard troops will ramp up and federal officers will be out around the clock.
The changes starting Wednesday night come days after the president made the unprecedented announcement that his administration would take over the police department for at least a month.
Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser is walking a political tightrope. She has called the takeover an “authoritarian push” but also framed the infusion of officers as a boost to public safety.
Hundreds of federal law enforcement and city police officers who patrolled Tuesday night made 43 arrests, compared with about two dozen the night before.
Councilmember Christina Henderson downplayed the arrest reports as “a bunch of traffic stops” and said the administration is seeking to disguise how unnecessary the intervention is.
“I’m looking at this list of arrests, and they sound like a normal Saturday night in any big city,” Henderson said.
▶ Read more about the intervention
Administration steps up sanctions against Cuban program sending doctors to developing countries
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions on an unspecified number of Cuban, Brazilian, Grenadan and other officials, including some in Africa and former employees of the Pan American Health Organization.
Rubio said they are being targeted “for their complicity in the Cuban regime’s medical mission scheme in which medical professionals are ‘rented’ by other countries at high prices and most of the revenue is kept by the Cuban authorities.”
None of the officials, except for two Brazilian health ministry employees, were named in the statements.
Rubio accused them of being “responsible for or involved in abetting the Cuban regime’s coercive labor export scheme, which exploits Cuban medical workers through forced labor.”
Rubio previously imposed similar sanctions on other officials after announcing the new policy to punish Cuba and countries that accept Cuban health care workers in February.
Trump administration’s lawsuit against all of Maryland’s federal judges meets skepticism in court
U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen questioned why it was necessary for the administration to sue the state’s entire federal bench over an order pausing the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals.
Cullen did not issue a ruling following a hearing in Baltimore, but he expressed skepticism about the legal maneuver, which attorneys for the Maryland judges called completely unprecedented.
All of Maryland’s 15 federal judges are named as defendants in the suit, a highly unusual circumstance that reflects the administration’s aggressive response to courts that slow or stop its policies.
At issue in the lawsuit is a judicial order barring the administration from deporting any immigrants seeking review of their detention until 4 p.m. on the second business day after their habeas corpus petition is filed.
The Justice Department says that impedes Trump’s authority to enforce immigration laws.
Attorneys for the Maryland judges counter that the suit aims to limit the power of the judiciary.
Indiana Democrats warn they ‘may be next in line’ in redistricting fights
Rep. Cherrish Pryor, a Democrat from Indiana, warned Wednesday that the Texas redistricting fight would have impacts far beyond the Lone Star state, saying “while Texas is on the frontlines of this fight, Indiana may be next in line.”
President Donald Trump has been pressuring Republican-run states, including Indiana, to redraw Congressional boundaries and dispatched Vice President JD Vance to the state this month to call for a new federal caucus.
Rep. Ed DeLaney, from Indiana, decried Vance’s visit to Indiana, telling the Associated Press it was “insulting and embarrassing.”
“Never in my life did I think the vice president of the United States would come to my state and ask them to shoplift two districts,” he said.
DeLaney also said he has seen potential drafts of redistricting maps for Indiana “floating around” and said he sensed hesitancy about them from his Republican colleagues. There’s always the risk, he said, that redistricting would backfire for the party that calls for it.
“If they have any brains, they’d look at this and ask ‘How does this play out for me?’” He said. “Every one of them won the district they have, and they won them fairly easily.”
The Associated Press
