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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House next week for talks with President Donald Trump, a US official said Monday, as Washington ramps up the pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza.The July 7 visit — Netanyahu’s third since Trump returned to power in January — comes after Trump said that he hoped for a truce in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory within a week.A Trump administration official confirmed the visit to AFP on condition of anonymity.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier that Netanyahu had “expressed interest” in a meeting with Trump and that both sides were “working on a date.”This has been a priority for the president since he took office, to end this brutal war in Gaza,” Leavitt told reporters in a briefing.”It’s heartbreaking to see the images that have come out from both Israel and Gaza throughout this war, and the president wants to see it end.”A senior Israeli official, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, is due to visit the White House this week for talks to lay the ground for Netanyahu’s visit, Leavitt said.Netanyahu became the first foreign leader to visit Trump in his second term in February, when the US president surprised him by suddenly announcing a plan for the United States to “take over” Gaza.The Israeli premier visited again in April.The end of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran has provided a window of opportunity for a deal, with Trump keen to add another peace agreement to a series of recent deals he has brokered.”We think even next week, we’re going to get a ceasefire,” Trump told reporters on Friday. He followed up by pressing Israel in a post on his Truth Social network on Sunday to “make the deal in Gaza”.But on the ground, Israel has continued to pursue its offensive across the Palestinian territory in a bid to destroy the militant group Hamas. Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 51 people on Monday, including 24 at a seafront rest area.Trump meanwhile appeared to leverage US aid to Israel at the weekend as he called for that country’s prosecutors to drop corruption charges against Netanyahu.”The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this,” Trump posted.The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Of these, 49 are still believed to be held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 56,531 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.

An elderly woman who was severely injured in the firebombing attack at a protest supporting Israeli hostages held in Gaza has died, prosecutors in the US state of Colorado said Monday.”Karen Diamond, 82 years old, died tragically as a result of the severe injuries that she suffered in the attack,” the district attorney’s office in Boulder, where the violent June 1 incident occurred, said in a statement.Following Diamond’s death, charges against the suspect in the attack, 45-year-old Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, have been amended from attempted murder to first degree murder, the statement said.It added that the district attorney’s office has revised the toll from the attack, estimating that there were 29 victims in total, including 13 who were wounded. Authorities had initially reported 15 wounded.Soliman, who authorities say was in the country illegally after overstaying a tourist visa, already faces over 100 criminal counts for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails and spraying burning gasoline at the protesters.Last week, the US Justice Department announced federal hate crime charges against Soliman.In bystander videos, the attacker can be heard screaming “End Zionists!” and “Killers!”Governor Jared Polis, the first Jewish person to lead the western state, said Monday on X that the loss of Diamond “is deeply felt by the Boulder community and our entire state, particularly within our strong Jewish community.”The Boulder attack came less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, where a 31-year-old suspect, who shouted “Free Palestine,” was arrested.

US President Donald Trump will visit a migrant detention center this week in a reptile-infested Florida swamp dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” the White House said Monday.Trump will attend the opening of the 5,000-bed facility — located at an abandoned airfield in the Everglades wetlands — on Tuesday, part of his expansion of deportations of undocumented migrants, his spokeswoman said.”The facility is in the heart of the Everglades and will be informally known as Alligator Alcatraz,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.”There is only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight. It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain.”Asked if the scaly-skinned predators were a “design feature,” Leavitt replied: “When you have illegal murderers and rapists and heinous criminals in a detention facility surrounded by alligators, yes I do think that’s a deterrent for them to try to escape.”Republican Trump’s visit comes as he is trying to push a huge tax and spending bill through Congress which includes funding for his massive migrant deportation program.”His trip to this detention facility actually underscores the need to pass the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’ because we need more detention facilities across the country,” Leavitt added.Florida announced last week that it was constructing the site, which is in the heart of a sprawling network of mangrove forests and swamps in the middle of the Everglades conservation area.State Attorney General James Uthmeier recently described the 30-square-mile (78-square-kilometer) area as a “low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility, because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter.”The facility’s nickname references the famous former prison on Alcatraz Island, located in the San Francisco Bay, which Trump has also sought to re-open.”If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them, other than alligators and pythons,” Uthmeier added. It is expected to cost roughly $450 million per year to operate.The project is part of a broader campaign of harsh optics which Republican officials hope will discourage migrants from coming to the United States.Since the billionaire businessman’s return to the White House in January, his administration has enlisted local authorities to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramp up arrests of undocumented migrants.While officials highlight the targeting of violent criminals, many migrants without any charges have also been swept up.The deportation drive has prompted pushback among critics of the crackdown — and recently sparked anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and other American cities.Environmental groups have also opposed its construction in a subtropical ecosystem that is home to more than 2,000 species of animals and plants.

US President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up its immigration crackdown in Los Angeles on Monday, filing a lawsuit against its “sanctuary city” policies for undocumented migrants.The move comes three weeks after the Republican sent the National Guard to the Democratic-run California city to quell protests against roundups of migrants by federal agents.California Governor Gavin Newsom has said the thousands of troops were not necessary to address the mostly peaceful protests, but his legal efforts to have them removed have failed so far.Los Angeles is one of a number of US “sanctuary cities” that prohibit local police from arresting people based on their immigration status and limit what information can be shared with federal authorities.That has brought it in direct confrontation with Trump, who assailed undocumented migrants on the campaign trail, likening them to “animals” and “monsters,” and promised to launch the biggest deportation drive in US history.Under Trump, the Justice Department has sued Chicago and several other Democratic-run cities with sanctuary policies.In a statement, the department said it had filed suit against the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles City Council over policies that “interfere with the federal government’s enforcement of its immigration laws.”Attorney General Pam Bondi said sanctuary policies are “illegal under federal law” and contributed to the “recent lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism” in the country’s second-largest city.”Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Bondi alleged, a claim denied by the California authorities.US Attorney Bill Essayli said the lawsuit “holds the City of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.””By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the City’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end,” Essayli added.In the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, the Justice Department said federal government efforts to address an immigration “crisis” were being “hindered by Sanctuary Cities such as the City of Los Angeles.”

The White House said Monday that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had “caved” to President Donald Trump, after Canada dropped a tax on US tech firms that prompted Trump to call off trade talks.”It’s very simple. Prime Minister Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a daily briefing.Leavitt said Trump “knows how to negotiate,” adding that “every country on the planet needs to have good trade relationships with the United States.””And it was a mistake for Canada to vow to implement that tax that would have hurt our tech companies here in the United States.”Canada announced late Sunday that it would rescind taxes impacting US tech firms and said trade negotiations with Washington would resume.The digital services tax, enacted last year, would have seen US service providers such as Alphabet and Amazon on the hook for a multi-billion-dollar payment in Canada by Monday.But Trump, who has weaponized US economic power in the form of tariffs, abruptly said on Friday that he was ending trade talks with Canada in retaliation for the levy.Then over the weekend Trump revived his rhetoric about wanting Canada to become the 51st US state, which had strained ties between the two countries.”Frankly, Canada should be the 51st state, okay? It really should, because Canada relies entirely on the United States. We don’t rely on Canada,” Trump told Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”The blow-up over the tech tariffs came despite what had been warming relations between Trump and Carney.The Canadian leader came to the White House on May 6 and had a cordial meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. They met again at the Group of Seven summit earlier this month in Canada, where leaders pushed Trump to back away from his punishing trade war. A July 9 deadline that Trump has set for countries to negotiate trade deals is now rapidly approaching before harsh tariffs kick in.”He is going to set the rates for many of these countries if they don’t come to the table to negotiate in good faith, and he is meeting with his trade team this week to do that,” Leavitt said.

The Trump administration on Monday accused Harvard of violating the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students and threatened to cut off all federal funding if the university does not take urgent action.Harvard has been at the forefront of Donald Trump’s campaign against top US universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.”Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism.In a letter sent to the president of Harvard, a federal task force accused it of failing to protect the students during campus protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.Following an investigation, the task force concluded that “Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff,” according to the letter.The letter went on to say that the majority of Jewish students at Harvard felt they suffer discrimination on campus, while a quarter felt physically unsafe.”Jewish and Israeli students were assaulted and spit on; they hid their kippahs for fear of being harassed and concealed their Jewish identity from classmates for fear of ostracization,” the letter said.Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Harvard was in violation of civil rights legislation and “if you break federal law, you should not be receiving federal tax dollars.”The school said it strongly disagreed with the government’s findings as it “has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community.”The Trump administration has also sought to remove Harvard from an electronic student immigration registry and instructed US embassies around the world to deny visas to international students hoping to attend the Massachusetts-based university.Harvard has sued the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to block the efforts, arguing that they were illegal and unconstitutional and the courts have put those moves on hold for now.International students accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment at Harvard in the 2024-2025 academic year and are a major source of income.

Jurors on Monday started deliberating on whether Sean “Diddy” Combs used his celebrity, wealth and business empire to set up a decades-long criminal ring that allegedly saw him force women into drug-fueled sexual performances with escorts.After the judge completed his instructions, the jury in New York began the task of weighing evidence from phone and financial records, and 34 people who testified against Combs over the past seven weeks.Combs, 55, faces life in prison if convicted on five federal charges that include racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation for purposes of prostitution.The producer and entrepreneur, once one of the most powerful people in the music industry, denies the charges.On Friday, his lawyer vied to skewer the credibility of his accusers — namely two women he dated for years — saying they were out for money, while rejecting any notion that the musician led a criminal ring.But in their final argument, prosecutors tore into the defense, saying Combs’s team had “contorted the facts endlessly.”Prosecutor Maurene Comey told jurors that by the time Combs had committed his clearest-cut offenses, “he was so far past the line he couldn’t even see it.””In his mind he was untouchable,” she told the court. “The defendant never thought that the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud what he had done to them.””That ends in this courtroom,” she said. “The defendant is not a god.”Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo scoffed at the picture painted by prosecutors of a violent, domineering man who fostered “a climate of fear.”Combs is a “self-made, successful Black entrepreneur” who had romantic relationships that were “complicated” but consensual, Agnifilo said.- Manipulation -The defense has conceded that Combs at times beat his partners — but insisted the domestic violence does not amount to the sex trafficking or racketeering he is charged with.Key to the prosecution’s case were witnesses Casandra Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane, both of whom described abuse, threats and coercive sex in wrenching detail.In their closing arguments the defense dissected their accounts and at times even mocked them, insisting the women were adults making choices that were best for them.Prosecutor Comey snapped back at that notion, saying the women were “manipulated” into “brazen” acts of sex trafficking.Ventura and Jane both said they experienced emotional manipulation and threats that made them feel obliged to meet Combs’s sexual demands.Throughout the trial, jurors were shown voluminous phone records, including messages from both women that Agnifilo argued implied consent.But prosecutors said those messages did not paint the whole picture, and referenced testimony from a forensic psychologist who explained to jurors how victims become ensnared by abusers.Central to their case is the claim that Combs led a criminal enterprise of senior employees who “existed to serve his needs” and enforced his power with offenses including forced labor, kidnapping, bribery, witness tampering and arson.But Agnifilo underscored that none of those individuals testified against Combs, nor were they named as co-conspirators.Many witnesses were given immunity orders so they could speak without fear of incriminating themselves.To convict Combs on racketeering, jurors must find that prosecutors showed beyond reasonable doubt that he agreed with people within his organization to commit at least two of the eight crimes forming the racketeering charge.The eight men and four women must reach a unanimous decision, reaching either a guilty or not guilty verdict on each count.

US senators began voting Monday on Donald Trump’s flagship spending bill, as the deeply divisive package — expected to slash social programs for the poor and add an eye-watering $3 trillion to the national debt — entered its frenetic home stretch.Trump wants what he calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill” to extend his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion to the budget, boost military spending and fund his plans for unprecedented mass deportations and border security.Yet even as the process reaches its climax, Republican meeting rooms are still reverberating with bitter rows over the deep cuts to welfare programs planned to offset the bill’s massive costs.Senators eyeing 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over savings that would strip some $1 trillion in subsidized health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3.3 trillion to the nation’s already yawning budget deficit over a decade.Trump wants to have the package on his desk by the time Independence Day festivities begin on Friday.”ONE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, is moving along nicely!” he posted on his Truth Social platform late Sunday.Given Trump’s iron grip on the party, he is expected to get what he wants in the Senate where Republicans hold a razor-tight majority, while Democrats will overwhelmingly vote no.It will be a huge win for the Republican leader — who has been criticized for imposing many of his priorities through executive orders that sidestep the scrutiny of Congress.But the vote on final passage will still be a nail-biter and can only take place after a marathon series of attempted amendments.Known as a “vote-a-rama,” the session allows senators to offer unlimited tweaks to the 940-page text for floor votes, meaning the process can extend well beyond 12 hours.Even then, the Senate bill will have to pass a separate vote in the House of Representatives, where Republicans also have a narrow majority.- ‘Utterly insane’ -Trump’s heavy pressure to declare victory has put more vulnerable Republicans in a difficult position.Nonpartisan studies have concluded that the bill would ultimately pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest.And cuts to the Medicaid program — which helps low-income Americans get coverage in a country with notoriously expensive medical insurance — and cuts to the Affordable Care Act would result in nearly 12 million more uninsured people by 2034, independent analysis shows.Polls show the bill is among the most unpopular ever considered across multiple demographic, age and income groups.Senate Democrats are expected to focus their amendments on highlighting the threats to health care, as well as cuts to federal food aid programs and clean energy tax credits.Senate Majority Leader John Thune can only lose one more vote with conservative Rand Paul and moderate Thom Tillis already on the record as Republican rebels. Tillis, who has announced his retirement and no longer has to worry about reelection in 2026, delivered two fiery floor speeches Sunday slamming the phase-outs of clean energy tax credits and accusing Republicans of “betraying” Trump’s promise not to touch Medicaid.A House vote on the Senate bill could come as early as Wednesday. However, Republicans there face an equally tight vote-count, with ultra-conservative fiscal hawks complaining that the bill would not cut enough spending and moderates worried at the defunding of Medicaid.World’s richest person and former top Trump advisor Elon Musk — who fell out with the president over the bill — said the Senate text was “utterly insane” for seeking to gut government subsidies for clean energy.”It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future,” said Musk, who is the world’s richest person, and heads electric vehicle company Tesla and space flight firm SpaceX, among others.

US senators could vote as early as Monday on Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” spending bill, with the president voicing confidence in its progress despite obstacles within his own party.Trump is hoping the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will help seal his legacy, extending his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion and beefing up border security — key parts of his domestic agenda.But members of his Republican Party eyeing 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over the package, which would strip health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3 trillion to the country’s debt.”ONE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, is moving along nicely!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform late Sunday.The Senate formally opened debate on the bill late Saturday, after Republican holdouts delayed what should have been a procedural vote.Senators narrowly passed the motion to begin debate, with two Republicans joining 47 Democrats in voting against it — drawing sharp rebukes from Trump.Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama predicted the final vote on the bill would take place on Monday. “I would think so,” Britt told CNN when asked if voting on the bill would happen then.- July 4 timeline -Trump has pushed Republican lawmakers to get the bill passed and on his desk for him to sign into law by July 4, the United States’ Independence Day.On Sunday, however, he seemed to cast doubt on that timeline, and accused the opposition Democrats of delaying proceedings for political reasons.”There are a lot of bad people in the Democrat Party,” he told Fox News in an interview aired Sunday, berating his political opponents for not backing an increase to the debt ceiling.Earlier, Trump’s tone had been even sharper.”Republicans must remember that they are fighting against a very evil, corrupt and, in many ways, incompetent (Policywise!) group of people, who would rather see our Country ‘go down in flames’ than do the right thing,” he wrote on Truth Social.Democrats are bitterly opposed to the legislation and Trump’s agenda, and have vowed to hold up the debate. They began by insisting that the entirety of the roughly 1,000-page bill be read aloud to the chamber before the debate commenced. If passed in the Senate, the bill would go back to the House for approval, where Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes — and are facing stiff opposition from within their own ranks.On Sunday, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who opposes the bill, said he would not seek reelection next year, US media reported, after Trump excoriated him for his opposition to the spending plan.- Divisive cuts -Republicans are scrambling to offset the $4.5 trillion cost of Trump’s tax relief, with many of the proposed cuts to come from decimating funding for Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans.Republicans are split on the Medicaid cuts, which will threaten scores of rural hospitals and lead to an estimated 8.6 million Americans being deprived of health care.The spending plan would also roll back many of the tax incentives for renewable energy that were put in place under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.On Saturday, former Trump advisor Elon Musk — with whom the president had a public falling out this month over his criticism of the bill — called the current proposal “utterly insane and destructive.””It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future,” said Musk, who is the world’s richest person, and heads electric vehicle company Tesla and space flight firm SpaceX, among others.Independent analysis also shows that the bill would pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest.The bill is unpopular across multiple demographic, age and income groups, according to extensive recent polling. 

Canada will rescind taxes impacting US tech firms that had prompted President Donald Trump to retaliate by calling off trade talks, Ottawa said Sunday, adding that negotiations with Washington would resume.The digital services tax, enacted last year, would have seen US service providers such as Alphabet and Amazon on the hook for a multi-billion-dollar payment in Canada by Monday, analysts have said. Washington has previously requested dispute settlement talks over the tax — but on Friday Trump, who has weaponized US financial power in the form of tariffs, said he was ending trade talks with Ottawa in retaliation for the levy. He also warned that Canada would learn its new tariff rate within the week. But on Sunday, Ottawa binned the tax, which had been forecast to bring in Can$5.9 billion (US$4.2 billion) over five years.Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne “announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” a government statement said.It added that Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “have agreed that parties will resume negotiations with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21, 2025.”There was no immediate comment from the White House or Trump.US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Friday that Washington had hoped Carney’s government would halt the tax “as a sign of goodwill.”Canada has been spared some of the sweeping duties Trump has imposed on other countries, but it faces a separate tariff regime.Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has also imposed steep levies on imports of steel, aluminum and autos.Canada is the largest supplier of foreign steel and aluminum to the United States.Last week, Carney said Ottawa will adjust its 25 percent counter tariffs on US steel and aluminum — in response to a doubling of US levies on the metals to 50 percent — if a bilateral trade deal was not reached in 30 days.”We will continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interest of Canadians,” Carney said Friday.He had previously said a good outcome in the talks would be to “stabilize the trading relationship with the United States” and “ready access to US markets for Canadian companies” while “not having our hands tied in terms of our dealings with the rest of the world.”Carney and Trump met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Canada earlier this month. Leaders at the summit pushed Trump to back away from his punishing trade war. Dozens of countries face a July 9 deadline for steeper US duties to kick in — rising from a current 10 percent.It remains to be seen if they will successfully reach agreements before the deadline.Bessent has said Washington could wrap up its agenda for trade deals by September, indicating more agreements could be concluded, although talks were likely to extend past July.