Remarks by US president potentially mark conclusion of bombing campaign led by US and IsraelDonald Trump announced on Saturday that a peace deal with Iran “has been largely negotiated”, after calls with a Pakistani mediator, Gulf allies and Israel, potentially paving the way for an end to the war launched by the US and Israel in February.Trump wrote on his social media platform that “final aspects and details” of a “Memorandum of Understanding” are still being discussed, and “will be announced shortly” but said the strait of Hormuz will be opened as part of the deal. Continue reading...
The U.S. Secret Service shot amd killed a person who opened fire at a security checkpoint in an exchange of gunfire that briefly locked down the White House, officials said. NBC News correspondents have the latest on the shooting.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) sounded the alarm this weekend over a purported sweetheart deal that gave President Donald Trump direct financial control over a public Florida airport, telling his X followers the story has not received the attention it deserves.In a post on social media, Levin laid out how a Florida county effectively handed Trump the trademark and licensing rights to a public airport, with the president now positioned to profit off branded merchandise tied to the facility."Not enough people are talking about this," Levin wrote. "A Florida airport was renamed after Donald Trump. He walked away with the trademark, the licensing rights, and a deal that lets him profit off every piece of merchandise sold there."The deal Levin referenced is the same agreement the Guardian's Richard Luscombe reported on earlier this month, detailing how Palm Beach International Airport was rebranded as the President Donald J. Trump International Airport in a narrow vote of the Palm Beach County Commission. The airport sits less than five miles from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.According to the Guardian, the licensing agreement was signed by Trump last weekend and approved by the commission on a 4-3 vote in which the deciding ballot was cast by Maria Sachs, a Democrat. The remaining six commissioners split along party lines.The agreement was struck with DTTM Operations LLC, the Delaware-based Trump Organization affiliate run by Donald Trump Jr. that handles licensing, marketing, and intellectual property for the family, according to the report.Trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who has no connection to the deal, told the Guardian that the structure was "unusual." Trump gets to pick the vendors who manufacture branded merchandise, can monetize the new airport name however he wants, and can license the trademark to any third party of his choosing. Although the agreement bars "direct financial compensation" from goods sold at the airport, the Trump Organization can cash in on the same merchandise sold anywhere else, including on Trump's own online store.Trump also retains final approval over how his name, image, and likeness are portrayed at the airport."The clause effectively limits the county's editorial discretion, ensuring that portrayals of Trump, as both an individual and a former president, align with his personal preferences," Gerben told the Guardian.Levin honed in on how the deal got done as much as on the deal itself.According to Levin, county staff warned commissioners that rejecting the renaming proposal could trigger retaliation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with state transportation funding at risk. The Guardian's reporting confirms that account, noting that staff told the hearing that failure to comply with state law could jeopardize transportation funding and grant assurances from the state."DeSantis has already removed state attorneys and school board members who dared to cross him," Levin wrote. "That is the reality the Democratic commissioner who cast the deciding vote was living in when she made her choice: hand Donald Trump control of a public airport or watch Florida Republicans strip funding from the very people she was elected to represent."Sachs defended her vote in a statement to the Guardian, saying the commission was not voting on whether to change the airport's name but rather "approving a licensing agreement necessary to protect the county from trademark liability."Levin did not see the situation that way."That is absolutely insane," he wrote Saturday. "Florida Republicans handed Trump a money machine and called it a naming rights deal, and the people of Palm Beach County never got a say in any of it."
Iran has reportedly agreed to give up its stockpile of enriched uranium as part of the deal announced by President Trump Saturday
The Trump administration is going after a pair of influencers because of their support and visits to Cuba, according to reporting by Fox News. Progressive influencers Hasan Piker and CodePink cofounder Susan Medea Benjamin were served subpoenas by the Treasury Department on Saturday, Fox News reported. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control requested "financial, logistical and communications information" from the two, according to Fox News. The subpoenas are part of an investigation into possible violations of U.S. sanctions against Cuba. Piker and members of CodePink were in Havana, Cuba as part of a "united front" to support the country's communist government, according to Fox News' reporting.
President Trump announced that he is close to reaching an agreement with Iran to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran is dismissing his assertion. Imtiaz Tyab reports.
The Strait of Hormuz would reopen, and Iran would agree to clear the mines it deployed, Axios reports.
A frequent target of Donald Trump took the same cognitive test that the president keeps bragging about, and came away from it with a major warning for the entire country.Jim Acosta, the former CNN reporter Trump repeatedly attacked from the White House podium, walked through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment on his show this week. He passed it. He also said no president should ever need to take it.The test, known as the MoCA, was administered by Dr. Rob Davidson of the Committee to Protect Healthcare. Acosta drew the cube, copied the clock, identified the lion, rhino, and camel, named the date, and worked through the serial seven subtraction. He needed a category cue to recall one word, but otherwise sailed through the screening.Then he turned to the camera and made his point."This is something that the president of the United States should not be administered," Acosta said. "The president of the United States should not be taking a cognitive test ever, because we should be electing people to the office of the president of the United States where this is not an issue."Acosta's larger point was about Trump's pattern. The president has bragged for years about acing the same test, with his repeated comments about identifying "the squirrel" becoming a running joke during his second term. According to Acosta, the fact that Trump keeps taking the test at all is the actual headline."If he is actually taking multiple cognitive tests, hello everybody, that is a story," Acosta said. "That is a major, major story."Acosta also took aim at Trump's habit of bragging about the results. The MoCA is designed to detect mild cognitive impairment, not measure intelligence, and Acosta compared the appropriate response to a passing score with the way Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders used to handle touchdowns."Act like you've been there before," Acosta said. "If you take a cognitive test, you get a good score, and you just kind of go back to your day."The full episode is available on Acosta's YouTube channel.
The physician who administered the same cognitive screening that President Donald Trump keeps publicly bragging about says he sees something that should worry the country.Dr. Rob Davidson, head of the Committee to Protect Healthcare, walked former CNN reporter Jim Acosta through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment on Acosta's show this week. Davidson used the appearance to deliver a pointed message about Trump's repeated public claims that he has aced the screening multiple times.The test, Davidson said, is not a routine evaluation that doctors hand to every patient who walks in. It is administered specifically when a provider or a family member has raised a concern about possible cognitive decline. And once is generally enough."It is just not typical, right?" Davidson said. "It isn't typical. It isn't what you would just generally do for any individual when you didn't have a concern."The MoCA is designed to flag mild cognitive impairment, not measure intelligence or detect full-blown dementia. Davidson described it as a screening for someone who might be "slipping a little bit" and whose loved ones or physician are starting to take notice. It is not a test the average healthy adult ever takes, and it is not a test designed to be repeated for self-congratulatory purposes.Davidson stopped short of saying Trump has a diagnosable condition, calling that kind of remote evaluation unethical. But he did not soften the impression Trump's public behavior leaves on him as a physician."I won't make a diagnosis, we don't, it's not ethical to try to diagnose somebody," Davidson said. "And I don't know if the president has a condition, but something just seems not right."He went on to note that Trump's reported pattern of repeatedly requesting and bragging about the MoCA is itself an unusual data point. White House physicians, Davidson said, are typically not in the habit of administering the same impairment screening over and over to a patient when no clinical concern has been raised. That Trump appears to want to keep taking it, he said, is itself worth noticing.Acosta has himself been a frequent target of Trump's attacks, dating back to his days on the White House beat for CNN. He took the test on camera to make the case that no president should be in the position of needing to. By the end of the segment, Acosta was even more alarmed about the president.