Closing summary<\/p>\n
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration<\/a> for the day, but we will be back at it on Thursday. Here are the latest developments:<\/p>\n Donald Trump was presented with yet another award apparently invented just for him, when he received a trophy for being the \u201cundisputed champion of beautiful, clean coal\u201d from an industry executive. There is no such thing as clean coal.<\/p>\n In what just seems like a plot from Veep, the Pentagon gave the people guarding the border an anti-drone laser and border protection officers used it to shoot down a party balloon, causing the cancellation of all commercial flights in El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n A document held by the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, during her combative appearance before the House judiciary committee suggests that the justice department is keeping a record of what lawmakers look at when they view unredacted copies of the Epstein files.<\/p>\n The narrowly divided US House passed the Republican-sponsored Save America Act, which would required proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID at the polls, imposing a barrier to voting that, research shows<\/a>, more than 9% of US citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have readily available.<\/p>\n The US House passed a resolution terminating the supposed national emergency declared by Trump to justify imposing tariffs on Canada. The president was not amused, but the fate of his tariffs is likely to be decided by the supreme court.<\/p>\n Evidence made public on Wednesday showed that Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who was the face of the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation efforts until last month, praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman last year.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n Show key events only<\/p>\n Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/p>\n Trump wins another award no one knew existed, this time as the ‘undisputed champion’ of claiming that coal is not destroying the planet<\/p>\n At a White House event to promote coal on Wednesday, Donald Trump<\/a> was presented with yet another award that was apparently invented just for him, when he received a trophy for being the \u201cundisputed champion of beautiful, clean coal\u201d from an industry executive.<\/p>\n Donald Trump was presented with the \u201cUndisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal\u201d trophy by Jim Grech, the chief executive of Peabody Energy, at the White House on Wednesday. Photograph: Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n There is, of course, no such thing as clean coal, but Trump has devoted himself to rebranding the climate destroying fossil fuel as not just clean but beautiful as well \u2013 in the way that an Oval Office dripping in gold fittings is beautiful.<\/p>\n As our colleague Dharna Noor reported earlier, the coal industry poured $3.5 million<\/a> into efforts to elect Trump in 2024. Reports show the president\u2019s efforts to keep aging coal plants open could push up already-soaring energy bills<\/a> nationwide.<\/p>\n Trump grinned as he accepted the trophy and then sat down to sign an executive order directing the Pentagon to give preference to coal in long-term energy contracts.<\/p>\n Trump stated affection for the coal industry goes back to his first campaign in 2016, when he was presented with a miner\u2019s helmet by the West Virginia Coal Association, an industry group that endorsed him<\/a>, and briefly put it on to mime digging with a shovel.<\/p>\n After removing the helmet at that 2016 rally, Trump then launched into an extended riff<\/a> on how it might have impacted his hair, and bemoaned the fact that he could no longer use aerosol hairspray over what he considered to be phony climate concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, you\u2019re not allowed to use hairspray anymore because if affects the ozone. You know that, right?\u201d Trump said to laughter at the time. \u201cI said, \u2018You mean to tell me\u2019 \u2014 \u2019cause you know hairspray\u2019s not like it used to be, it used to be real good,\u201d he added, to more laughs. \u201cGive me a mirror. But no, in the old days, you put the hairspray on, it was good. Today, you put the hairspray on, it\u2019s good for 12 minutes, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Wait a minute \u2014 so if I take hairspray and if I spray it in my apartment, which is all sealed, you\u2019re telling me that affects the ozone layer?\u2019\u201d \u201c\u2018Yes.\u2019\u201d I say, no way, folks. No way!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo way!\u201d he added to cheers. \u201cThat\u2019s like a lot of the rules and regulations you people have in the mines, right? It\u2019s the same kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a022.19 EST<\/p>\n Bondi came to Congress armed with ‘search history’ of which Epstein documents one Democrat viewed<\/p>\n A document held by the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, during her combative appearance before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday suggests the justice department is keeping a record of what lawmakers look at when they view unredacted copies of documents in the files from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, the late child sex offender.<\/p>\n Throughout the hearing, Bondi launched into a series of prepared attacks on lawmakers whenever she was asked about her department\u2019s failure to keep the names of Epstein\u2019s victims confidential, as required by law, while protecting the privacy of powerful men accused of abusing them.<\/p>\n Among the more heated exchanges was Bondi\u2019s questioning by <\/a>Pramila Jayapal<\/a>, a progressive Democratic congresswoman from Washington.<\/p>\n Photographs of Bondi show she held a piece of paper labelled \u201cJayapal Pramila Search History\u201d during questioning, which listed eight documents from the files, one of which, about a \u201ctorture video\u201d apparently sent to Epstein by Dubai\u2019s powerful Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem Jayapal discussed.<\/p>\n During questioning by the House judiciary committee on Wednesday, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, held a piece of paper labelled \u201cJayapal Pramila Search History\u201d. Photograph: Kent Nishimura\/Reuters<\/p>\n After Jayapal urged Bondi to turn around and apologize to victims of Epstein who were in the room behind her, the attorney general refused to do so, and instead tried to turn the discussion to her predecessor, Merrick Garland. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t she ask Merrick Garland this?\u201d Bondi asked, repeating a Republican talking point that Democrats were unconcerned with Epstein\u2019s crimes until Donald Trump<\/a>, who socialized with Epstein for nearly two decades, was back in office. (In fact, Epstein\u2019s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was prosecuted by the justice department while Garland was in office, and many of the files were, at that time, still part of an ongoing prosecution.)<\/p>\n When Jayapal pressed her further to turn to the victims and apologize, Bondi told the Republican chairman, Jim Jordan, \u201cI\u2019m not going to get in the gutter with this woman, she\u2019s doing theatrics.\u201d (Jordan has faced persistent allegations that, when he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State University he ignored the sexual abuse of student wrestlers by a team doctor.)<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a022.25 EST<\/p>\n Pentagon let Customs and Border Protection fire anti-drone laser near El Paso this week \u2013 reports<\/p>\n The Pentagon allowed US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to use an anti-drone laser earlier this week, leading the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to suddenly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas, two people familiar with the situation told the Associated Press<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n As Trump administration officials appeared to pass the buck for the use of the laser, one US official told a Fox News producer<\/a> at the Pentagon that the directed energy weapon was in CBP\u2019s control when a balloon was mistaken for a drone and shot down near El Paso.<\/p>\n In January, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, agreed to loan the directed energy counter drone platform to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Fox reported.<\/p>\n The Washington Post military affair correspondent Dan Lamothe also reports<\/a>: \u201cAirspace was closed by the FAA near El Paso late Tuesday after CBP personnel launched a counter-drone laser weapon without full inter-agency integration, officials say. That weapon had recently been transferred temporarily by the Pentagon to DHS.\u201d<\/p>\n Another national security journalist, Michael Weiss, reports<\/a> that a source in the military confirmed to him the laser was fired by DHS, angering senior officers at US Northern Command.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery Gen and Adm at NORTHCOM is pissed that DHS did an operation and told no one because homeland defense is what NORTHCOM does,\u201d the source told Weiss. \u201cEven the base commander at Ft Bliss called the Pentagon and NORTHCOM furious.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a020.35 EST<\/p>\n House Democrat investigates Trump’s sudden reversal on US-Canada bridge after reported lobbying by Republican donor<\/p>\n Robert Garcia, the senior Democrat on the House oversight committee, wrote to Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, on Wednesday to demand information about his reported role in turning Donald Trump against a new, publicly owned bridge connecting the US and Canada after he met a billionaire Republican donor who owns a rival bridge.<\/p>\n In his letter<\/a>, Garcia cited reporting from the New York Times<\/a> that Trump\u2019s sudden threat on Monday to block the opening of the new bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, came after a call from Lutnick, who had just met with Matthew Moroun, the owner of the private Ambassador Bridge between the two cities, who has donated more than $600,000 to Trump and the Republican party.<\/p>\n Gordie Howe international bridge, seen this week under construction between Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Photograph: Dax Melmer\/Reuters<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears that you have chosen to protect a politically connected billionaire donor family at the expense of promoting American commerce,\u201d Garcia wrote to Lutnick.<\/p>\n \u201cYour interference could increase traffic congestion, reduce economic opportunity, and damage trade between the US and Canada. As such, I request information regarding any communications and undue influence the Moroun family may have had with the Trump administration<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Garcia asked Lutnick to turn over documents including all communications related to his meeting with Moroun on Monday and his discussions with Trump or anyone else in the White House related to the new bridge and the old bridge.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Gordie Howe international bridge, which President Trump once touted as a \u2018vital economic link between our two countries,\u2019 has been under construction for years,\u201d Garcia noted. \u201cThe Moroun family\u2019s latest attempt to delay or block the opening of the bridge by directly appealing to you and to the Trump Administration appears to have proven successful.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a020.42 EST<\/p>\n US House passes bill to require voter ID and limit vote by mail<\/p>\n The narrowly divided US House passed the Republican-sponsored Save America Act on Wednesday, which would required proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID at the polls, imposing a barrier to voting that, research shows<\/a>, more than 9% of US citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have readily available.<\/p>\n All but one of the Republicans in Congress voted for the measure, and all but one of the Democrats voted against it.<\/p>\n The legislation is not guaranteed to pass the Senate.<\/p>\n Henry Cuellar, a conservative Texas congressman who was recently given clemency by Donald Trump<\/a>, was the only Democrat to vote for the bill.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a019.29 EST<\/p>\n Majority in US House votes to end Trump’s tariffs on Canada<\/p>\n The US House just passed a joint resolution terminating the national emergency declared by Donald Trump<\/a> to impose tariffs on imports from Canada.<\/p>\n Six Republicans joined almost all Democrats to pass the measure by a vote of 219-211 in the narrowly divided House.<\/p>\n The rebuke is likely symbolic, since it would take a two-thirds majority of both the House and the Senate to override a presidential veto, and Trump left no doubt about his unwavering support for tariffs in a blistering social media post<\/a> as the votes were cast.<\/p>\n \u201cAny Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!\u201d Trump warned just two minutes before enough Republicans voted for the resolution to form a majority.<\/p>\n Polling shows that the tariffs are unpopular with a majority of Americans<\/a>, including business owners who traditionally support Republicans.<\/p>\n The supreme court is expected to rule soon on the Trump administration\u2019s effort to get lower court rulings, which found that the president does not have the power to impose tariffs, overturned.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a018.56 EST<\/p>\n Dharna Noor<\/p>\n Climate leaders gathered outside the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters on Wednesday to condemn the Trump administration\u2019s plans to repeal the legal finding underpinning all federal climate regulations.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is corruption, plain and simple. Old fashioned, dirty political corruption,\u201d said the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse at the rally. \u201cThis is an agency that has been so infiltrated by the corrupt fossil fuel industry that it has turned an agency of government into the weapon of the fossil fuel polluters.\u201d<\/p>\n The rollback of the 2009 endangerment finding will be finalized by Donald Trump<\/a> and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters yesterday. The seminal ruling established a legal basis to regulate planet-warming pollution under the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n The move comes a year and a half after Trump on the campaign trail directly requested $1bn from oil bosses<\/a>, promising he would scrap environmental rules if elected.<\/p>\n \u201c[Zeldin] is saying to the fossil fuel industry, you now are gonna get what you paid for,\u201d said the Massachusetts senator Ed Markey at the gathering. \u201cThis is cash and carry: You give us the cash, and then we carry away all of the environmental protections.\u201d<\/p>\n At the event, environmental non-profits including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club pledged to file litigation over the forthcoming rollback.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gonna be taking this fight to the courts, and we are going to win,\u201d said Manish Bapna, president of the national environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council.<\/p>\n The plan to kill the endangerment finding is \u201cterrifying\u201d, said Talia Brandt, a 10-year old Maryland resident and member of environmental health organization Moms Clean Air Force, who appeared at the rally with her mother, Liz.<\/p>\n \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have to be here fighting for our future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a017.45 EST<\/p>\n Border chief Greg Bovino emailed agent who shot Chicago woman five times to praise him<\/p>\n Evidence made public on Wednesday showed that Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who was the face of the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation efforts until last month, praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an immigration crackdown last year.<\/p>\n Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, was shot five times by a border patrol agent in October while in her vehicle. She was charged with felony assault after homeland security officials accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. But the case was abruptly dismissed after video evidence showed that the agent who shot her had first steered his vehicle into Martinez\u2019s car.<\/p>\n The new evidence \u2013 which includes emails, text messages and videos \u2013 was released this week after a US district judge, Georgia Alexakis, lifted a protective order. Federal prosecutors had argued the documents could \u201cfurther sully\u201d Exum\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know why the United States government has expressed zero concern for the sullying of Ms Martinez\u2019s reputation,\u201d Alexakis countered.<\/p>\n The border patrol agent who shot Martinez, Charles Exum, was not wearing his body camera during the incident, according to Martinez\u2019s lawyer, but body camera video recorded by another agent<\/a> and released on Tuesday showed the moments that led up to the shooting from inside Exum\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time to get aggressive and get the [expletive] out,\u201d one agent could be heard saying.<\/p>\n After Exum gets out of the car, the sound of five shots being fired can be heard on the video.<\/p>\n In this still image from body cam footage taken on 4 October 2025, a border patrol officer points his weapon at the vehicle of Marimar Martinez after shots were fired and she was struck multiple times in Chicago. Photograph: United States Attorney\u2019s Office\/Reuters<\/p>\n Emails and text messages to Exum included one message from Bovino sending encouragement to Exum after the shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cIn light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!\u201d Bovino wrote to Exum on 4 October, hours after Martinez was shot, in an email urging him to put off his retirement.<\/p>\n Another text exchange highlighted by lawyers for Martinez showed that when a fellow agent asked Exum if his superiors were being \u201csupportive\u201d after the shooting, Exum replied: \u201cBig time. Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself \u2026 according to Bovino.\u201d<\/p>\n On the day Martinez was shot, she had followed a border patrol vehicle and honked her horn to warn others of the presence of immigration agents. Body camera footage showed agents with weapons drawn and rushing out of the vehicle.<\/p>\n Lawyers for Martinez pushed to make evidence in the dismissed criminal case public, saying they were especially motivated to do so after a federal agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis under similar circumstances.<\/p>\n In one group text, other agents congratulated Exum as Bovino had, calling him a \u201clegend\u201d and offering to buy him beers.<\/p>\n In another text exchange, first made public when Martinez testified in Congress last week, another agent sent Exum a Guardian report<\/a> on the shooting in which her lawyer said she had \u201cseven holes in her body from five shots\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cRead it,\u201d Exum replied. \u201c5 shots, 7 holes\u201d.<\/p>\n Exum then appeared to brag to colleagues about his shooting skills. \u201cI fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Images of text messages from the phone of Charles Exum, the border patrol officer who shot Marimar Martinez last year, were displayed at a news conference on Wednesday, Photograph: Erin Hooley\/AP<\/p>\n Bovino\u2019s belligerent persona, in frequent Fox News appearances, on social media and while leading operations in front of cameras deployed to produce propaganda for the Trump administration, had earned him a starring role in the made-for-TV crackdown until last month, when he was caught lying about Alex Pretti, the VA nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis despite posing no threat.<\/p>\n The shooting of Martinez came during the height of the Chicago-area crackdown last year, during which a federal judge concluded that Bovino had lied to her<\/a> about having been struck by a rock during a confrontation with protesters in the city.<\/p>\n The government unsuccessfully fought the release of the documents on the shooting, including an email from Bovino, who led enforcement operations nationwide until video evidence showed that he had lied when he said Pretti \u201capproached law enforcement with a weapon\u201d, \u201cviolently resisted\u201d and wanted to \u201cmassacre law enforcement\u201d.<\/p>\n Martinez\u2019s lawyer are pursuing a complaint under a law that permits individuals to sue federal agencies. They outlined instances of DHS lying about Martinez after the shooting, including labeling her a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d and accusing her of having a history of \u201cdoxxing federal agents\u201d. The Montessori school assistant has no criminal record and prosecutors haven\u2019t brought evidence in either claim.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a time where we just cannot trust the words of our federal officials,\u201d attorney Christopher Parente said at a news conference where his office released evidence.<\/p>\n That included an agent\u2019s hand-drawn diagram of the scene to allege how Martinez \u201cboxed in\u201d federal agents. It included three vehicles Parente said \u201cdon\u2019t exist\u201d.<\/p>\n Many of the emails, text messages and videos were released on Tuesday night by the US attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Marimar Martinez after a press conference on Wednesday, where her lawyers displayed evidence gathered from the federal agents who shot her in Chicago last year. Photograph: Jim Vondruska\/Reuters<\/p>\n Last week, Martinez offered emotional testimony<\/a> about her ordeal to Democrats in Congress in which she described her shock at being described as terrorist based on the false account of the incident offered by federal agents.<\/p>\n Martinez recalled:<\/p>\n The news in the jail that evening had my story and I was being called a \u2018domestic terrorist\u2019! They said I \u2018rammed\u2019 federal agents. I was in shock. If they only knew I was just months away from paying off my car and I would never intentionally damage my vehicle much less be crazy enough to hit a law enforcement vehicle. On Friday I was teaching the young children at the Montessori school and we were singing and dancing and getting ready for spooky season preparing fall activities to do the following week and on Saturday my own government was calling me a \u2018domestic terrorist\u2019 and I was in a federal detention center with bullet holes all over my body.<\/p>\n