Summary
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had asked the justice department to release all grand jury testimony in Jeffrey Epstein’s case. In a post on Truth Social, the president declared that even if the court gave its “full and unwavering support” that “nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request”: “I have asked the Justice Department to release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval. With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more. MAGA!”
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday it is eliminating its research and development arm and reducing agency staff by thousands of employees. One union leader said the moves “will devastate public health in our country”. The agency’s office of research and development (ORD) has long provided the scientific underpinnings for the EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human health. The EPA said in May it would shift its scientific expertise and research efforts to program offices that focus on major issues such as air and water.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has reportedly stripped eight of Brazil’s 11 supreme court judges of their US visas as the White House escalates its campaign to help the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro avoid justice over his alleged attempt to seize power with a military coup. Bolsonaro, a far-right populist with ties to Trump’s Maga movement, is on trial for allegedly masterminding a murderous plot to cling to power after losing the 2022 election to his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is expected to be convicted by the supreme court in the coming weeks and faces a jail sentence of up to 43 years.
Brazil’s judiciary will not be intimidated by a US decision to target officials involved in the trial of Bolsonaro with visa bans, a senior judicial official said late on Friday, criticising the move as arbitrary, according to Reuters. In an escalation of tensions between Trump and the government of Latin America’s largest economy, Washington imposed visa restrictions on Friday on supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, his family and other unnamed court officials.
Democrats are condemning CBS for its recent decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, noting the news comes just a few days after its host criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a $16m lawsuit with Trump. Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who appeared as a guest on Colbert’s show on Thursday night, later wrote on social media: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”
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While colleges and universities slow down during summer break, Ahniwake Rose is busy wondering what the fall semester will hold for the nation’s 37 tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) – and if they will be able to stay open much longer.
As the president and CEO of the Indigenous non-profit American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), Rose (Cherokee and Muscogee Creek) braces as the schools she represents face a potential nearly 90% reduction in funding starting in October.
Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget includes a proposal to slash operations funding from $183.3m to $22.1m for bureau of Indian education post-secondary programs – career and technical schools, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities. On 15 July, a House appropriations subcommittee approved legislation that allotted $1.5bn to the bureau of Indian education, though it did not specify how much would go toward post-secondary programs. Congress still needs to finish approving the budget for the bureau of Indian education, a subdivision of the Department of Interior.
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