Florida Rep. Byron Donalds has raised $22 million for his gubernatorial bid since entering the race, a sum that dwarfs any of the two dozen rivals in the race, according to his campaign.
Why it matters: The fundraising helps cement Donalds' status as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP primary in which he has a priceless asset: President Trump's endorsement.
People are already saying, "Hey, governor," to Donalds, his wife told Politico Florida Playbook in Monday's edition.
The intrigue: Donalds on Tuesday will stand side-by-side at a Florida press conference with Trump and termed-out Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has wanted his wife, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, to run for his office.
DeSantis became embittered with Donalds in 2023 when the congressman didn't endorse him in his failed bid for president and instead backed Trump in his successful reelection campaign.
DeSantis has dissed Donalds publicly for being a no-show in state culture war issues.
Donalds has refrained from clapping back and publicly praises the governor.
Zoom in: Donalds raised $12 million immediately after he announced his bid Feb. 26 and then pulled in an additional $10 million in the just-ended second quarter, his campaign said.
Contributors to his political and campaign committees include a number of big name former donors to DeSantis, including billionaires Thomas Peterffy, Dick Uihlein and Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts.
Other notable contributors include Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, entrepreneurs known for their Facebook battle against Mark Zuckerberg.
Zoom out: Florida is such a red state now that whoever wins its primaries for statewide office is the heavy favorite to carry the state in the general election.
Active registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by about 1.3 million in the state.
Republicans control every statewide seat now.
Democrats' biggest name in the race used to be a Republican: former Rep. David Jolly, who recently announced his campaign and is touring the state talking about insurance reform and affordability.
Congress has gotten so miserable that the traditional "I'm sad to leave" has now become "not a hard choice" to retire.
Why it matters: Exhausted lawmakers are choosing retirement over bipartisan dealmaking that their own parties clearly don't want.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his retirement on Sunday. "I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term," Tillis said in a statement. "It's not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election."
Tillis capped off his retirement day by savaging the "big, beautiful bill" for its cuts to Medicaid and renewable energy tax credits.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Monday he won't run again. Bacon is one of just three House Republicans who won in congressional districts won by Vice President Harris in 2024.
In his retirement announcement, Bacon bragged about his record on bills that became law.
Zoom out: The trend line is scary for fans of working across the aisle.
Sens. Mitt Romney, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema chose to retire in 2024, citing the difficulty of getting bipartisan deals done in Congress.
Before they left, a bipartisan deal on immigration collapsed in 2024 after then-former President Trump urged Republicans to kill the bill, and Democrats with competitive races also voted it down.
In this term, a bipartisan deal on groundbreaking crypto regulation nearly collapsed after Democrats demanded it include language targeted at the Trump family's crypto empire.
What to watch: Sen. Susan Collins' (R-Maine) re-election race is currently rated "lean Republican" by The Cook Political Report.
In Alaska, fellow moderate GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn't up for re-election and is ruthlessly focused on helping her state. That even includes entertaining the longshot possibility of caucusing with Democrats if they create a 50-50 tie after the midterms.
In Texas, Republicans are freaked out by the prospect of Sen. John Cornyn losing his primary. He's facing firebrand Texas AG Ken Paxton, who would have a much tougher time in a general election.
What's next: Republicans are carefully watching the Louisiana Senate race. Sen. Bill Cassidy is expected to face numerous GOP primary challengers.
Cassidy is one of just three GOP senators (along with Collins and Murkowski) still serving who voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial.
The "big, beautiful bill" slashes food and health benefits for the poorest Americans, while giving tax cuts to higher earners — blowing a hole in the nation's safety net, according to healthcare experts and advocates for lower-income people.
Why it matters: Experts say the cuts could unleash a tidal wave of pain — overcrowded emergency rooms, an increase in chronic health care issues, more medical debt, and more folks going hungry.
If the $4 trillion bill passes into law, it would be the biggest cut to the social safety net in decades, as the Washington Post noted.
State of play: It's hard to know exactly where the bill will land, but it's on track to cut 20% of spending on food stamps, or SNAP, with more than 2 million losing benefits, per an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office provided to Senate Democrats.
Cuts to Medicaid could lead to nearly 12 million people losing health insurance, per the CBO.
Changes to the Affordable Care Act could lead to losses for millions more; others would face higher healthcare costs.
There's massive overlap here — nearly 30 million of the 38.3 million people receiving SNAP in 2022 were also enrolled in Medicaid, notes KFF.
It's a double-whammy: these folks would need more for healthcare, while being further stretched on groceries.
By the numbers: The bottom 20% of earners would see a nearly 3% decline in income, about $700, under the Senate version of the bill. That's per a new analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, which takes into the social safety net changes into account.
The top 1 percent would see a nearly 2% increase, or $30,000.
The intrigue: Many of the losses in Medicaid and SNAP coverage are the result of new work requirements that opponents say are actually red tape thickets that typically lead people to lose benefits — even those who are working.
Proponents argue that work requirements for able-bodied adults help "reduce unnecessary enrollments in welfare," as this Heritage Foundation report explains.
The other side: The White House and Congressional Republicans say work requirements are just a common-sense way to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.
"By slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs and implementing commonsense work requirements, The One, Big, Beautiful Bill will preserve these vital lifelines for generations of Americans to come," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
"The bill's pro-growth provisions and working class tax cuts will turbocharge America's economic resurgence."
The White House also argues that the Congressional Budget Office's assumptions about Obamacare changes are overblown.
💭 Emily's thought bubble: Beginning in 2020, when Trump was in office, the federal government unleashed a torrent of money in social safety net spending that continued into the Biden era. It drastically reduced poverty rates in the U.S.
Why it matters: When the deal-making music stops, someone's going to be left out.
Driving the news: Apple is talking with both Anthropic and OpenAI about using their foundation models to power Siri, after in-house efforts to upgrade Apple's voice assistant have faltered, Bloomberg reported Monday.
Once cutting edge, Siri is now a glaring anachronism in a world enthralled by the verbal and vocal agility of LLMs — and an irritating reminder to everyone at Apple of how far they've lagged behind in the voice-assistant competition.
The big picture: Every big player in tech is working on their own foundation models — the biggest and most ambitious large language models that fuel ChatGPT and all the other services at the heart of the generative AI revolution.
OpenAI, Anthropic and Google seized the high ground early and have stayed ahead of the pack, both in scale, innovative advances and subtle refinements.
Important runners-up range from Elon Musk's X.ai to France's Mistral and China's DeepSeek.
Most of tech's five trillion-dollar giants already have a match in the foundation-model game, but there's constant movement, and the music is still playing.
Google is the only one of the giants that has built its own top-tier model.
Its researchers made the breakthroughs that power LLMs today, but it was slow to share advances with the public, opening the door for OpenAI to stun the world with ChatGPT in November 2022.
Since then Google has poured enormous resources into Gemini — once known as Bard — and begun rebuilding most of its products, including its dominant search engine, around the model.
Microsoft tied its future to OpenAI early in the game with a gigantic investment and a commitment to deploying OpenAI models to the vast installed base of Microsoft users.
But the alliance has frayed, and the two companies are locked in high-stakes negotiations for an amicable breakup.
Meta got a later start and bet heavily on an open-source strategy with its Llama model family.
But disappointment in the progress made by the most recent Llama flagship model has forced a rethink, per the New York Times.
The Times reported last week that Meta execs had discussed "de-investing" in Llama, though the company denies that.
Meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has poached a number of OpenAI researchers and added ScaleAI founder Alexandr Wang and former Github CEO Nat Friedman to his roster.
Zuckerberg announced Monday these new hires would lead a unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs that will bring together all of Meta's foundation model work.
Amazon has invested in its own families of models to offer its cloud customers, chiefly Nova and Titan.
But for its effort to improve the popular but aging Alexa voice assistant, Amazon found that Nova alone couldn't handle the job and pulled Anthropic's Claude in as well.
Apple wouldn't turn to Google — not only because both companies are defending giant antitrust lawsuits that might make a deal perilous, but also for historical-cultural reasons.
Apple never forgave Google for building Android, though it still takes Google's billions for making Google search the iPhone default.
That leaves OpenAI and Anthropic — both of which Apple has explored partnering with, per Bloomberg.
Siri already lets users route questions to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
But a team tasked with evaluating Apple's external options found that Anthropic's Claude was the best candidate for the broader Siri upgrade, Bloomberg reported.
Yes, but: Apple could still decide to redouble its internal efforts instead.
The company has a long history of avoiding shipping half-baked products and letting projects take as long as they need to become what Apple thinks of as "great."
But the pace of AI change is putting that strategy to its toughest test yet.
Zoom out: Driving and shaping all these firms' deals and choices is the war for AI talent, with both giants and startups desperately throwing money at a relatively small number of researchers.
Each company hopes that its team will be able to deliver on the astronomical promises executives have made about AI's transformative benefits and ultimate profits.
But not everyone can win — and each of the tech industry's previous waves has had only one or two victors.
Elon Musk again blasted President Trump's signature spending bill Monday as the Senate worked through a marathon amendment session to send the measure to the Oval Office by July 4.
The latest: Hours after Musk threatened to form a new political party if the "big, beautiful bill" passed, Trump claimed early Tuesday the Tesla CEO "may get more subsidy than any human being in history" and suggested he may have DOGE, which the Tesla CEO once spearheaded, take a "good, hard, look" at the businesses the billionaire has government contracts with.
"It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!" Musk wrote on his social media site X.
"Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people," the world's richest man added.
What they're saying: In a separate post, Musk doubled down on his rhetoric, saying every member of Congress who votes to pass the bill should "hang their head in shame."
"[T]hey will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth," Musk said.
In a post later Monday, Musk said, "If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day."
He added that the country needs "an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE."
Of note: The White House initially responded to Musk's comments by pointing to Trump's remarks to Fox News over the weekend saying that the world's richest person was upset the bill would end subsidies for EVs.
"I think Elon is a wonderful guy, and I know he's going to do well, always. He's a smart guy," Trump said in the interview.
An Iran-linked cyberattack group that hacked President Trump's 2024 campaign is threatening to release another trove of emails it has stolen from his associates, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Roger Stone.
The big picture: Reuters first reported the threat on Monday that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on X called a "calculated smear campaign" — which came the same day as the Trump administration released a report warning that "Iranian Cyber Actors" may target U.S. firms and "operators of critical infrastructure."
We published a joint fact sheet with FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation, DC3, and NSA - National Security Agency...
And it came three days after Trump announced he was halting plans to potentially ease sanctions on Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities didn't cause major damage.
Driving the news: Hackers who gave themselves the pseudonym "Robert" told Reuters in online conversations on Sunday and Monday they had around 100 gigabytes of emails involving Wiles, Stone, Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan and adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and others.
They spoke of potentially selling the emails, but did not disclose details of the material.
The Justice Department alleged in an indictment last September against three Iranians in the 2024 Trump cyberattack case that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps oversaw the "Robert" hacking drive.
What they're saying: CISA spokesperson Marci McCarthy said in a statement posted to X in response to Reuters' report that a "hostile foreign adversary" was "threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified material in an effort to distract, discredit and divide."
McCarthy said the "so-called cyber 'attack' is nothing more than digital propaganda and the targets are no coincidence" and that it's designed to "damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants" who serve the U.S. with distinction.
"These criminals will be found and will be brought to justice," McCarthy added.
Two Idaho firefighters killed in a shooting near Coeur d'Alene were identified by authorities Monday.
The big picture: The two veteran firefighters, along with a third who was critically injured, were ambushed by a lone gunman who started a wildfire in the state's north Sunday, investigators said.
Details: Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Frank Harwood, 42, and Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison, 52, were identified as the fallen firefighters during a Monday evening briefing.
Harwood, a member of the county fire department for 17 years, was a husband and a father of two children. He was also a former Army National Guard combat engineer, said Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Christopher Way.
Morrison served the city for more than 28 years, working his way up to battalion chief, Coeur d'Alene Fire Chief Tom Greif said during the briefing.
Morrison and Harward will be honored with a procession of emergency vehicles on Tuesday morning, per a Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Facebook post.
Situation report: Coeur d'Alene Fire Department engineer David Tysdal, 47, sustained gunshot wounds and was in critical condition in a local hospital.
Tysdal, who has been with the fire department for 23 years, had two successful surgeries as of noon Monday, officials said at the briefing.
North Carolina Democrats are getting closer to the gift they've have been asking for all year, with former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) leaning toward a Senate run in the state President Trump has won three times.
Why it matters: The field is essentially frozen until Cooper and Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, decide if they want to be their party's nominees.
In their own way, they both have the "right of first refusal" in their party's primaries.
What they're saying: "Governor Cooper continues to strongly consider a run for the Senate and will decide in the coming weeks," said Morgan Jackson, Cooper's top political adviser told Axios.
"I'm considering it," Lara Trump told Fox News Radio on Monday.
"This is all kind of fresh within the past 24 hours for me," she said.
"North Carolina is my home state. It's where I was born and raised. It made me the person I am today."
Driving the news: In a surprise Sunday move, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced in the middle of Senate negotiations over the one "big, beautiful bill," that he would not be seeking a third term.
"In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species," Tillis said.
One longtime Senate Democratic donor told Axios that they expect Cooper to hop in the race after Tillis' retirement.
Zoom out: Even before his announcement, Democrats viewed North Carolina as their best opportunity to chip away at the GOP's 3-seat Senate majority in the 2026 midterms.
Tillis had shown a willingness, on a few issues, to buck the president, feeding suspicions in the MAGA base that wasn't on team Trump.
Zoom in: Lara Trump, a former RNC vice chair, could rely on the president to clear the field and avoid the messy GOP infighting from some of North Carolina's recent open statewide primaries.
National and state Democrats would likely make it clear to any other potential candidates that if Cooper runs, they should exit the race.
Former Rep. Wiley Nickel, who served for one term before Republicans redrew his seat before the 2024 election, announced a Senate bid in April.
Three freshman congressmen, Reps. Pat Harrigan, Tim Moore and Brad Knott, could jump into the race on the Republican side if Lara Trump passed.
More information surfaced Monday about Wess Roley, the 20-year-old suspected shooter in an incident that left two Idaho firefighters dead and another wounded over the weekend, as his family spoke to multiple outlets about the suspect's life and career.
The big picture: Though police have yet to determine what the suspect's intensions or motives were, Wess Roley's family has told multiple outlets that they were shocked over the allegations since he himself sought to be a firefighter.
Here's what we know so far about Wess Roley, based on interviews from his family, information from police and other reports.
The basics
Police said Monday that Roley had previously lived in California, Arizona, and Idaho.
He did not have a criminal history with the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, officials said.
The suspect previously had five "minor" interactions with the sheriffs office, police said.
Parents and home life
Roley's family were arborists and they climbed trees, police said at a press conference late Monday. He had a loving family, and recently vacationed in Hawaii, his grandfather, Dale Roley, told CNN.
Court documents obtained by NBC News show that in 2015, his mother, Heather Lynn Cuchiara, asked for protection against Roley's father and her then-husband, Jason Roley, for alleged acts of assault and damage.
Wess Roley's father told a CNN reporter that he wasn't close with his son.
A running website identified Wess Roley as a track runner at a local high school and a member of the class of 2024.His grandfather told 4 News Now that Wess liked to hike often.
"It wasn't like he was a loner," Dale Roley told CNN. "We had no reason to suspect that he would be involved in something like this."
Wess Roley moved to Idaho in 2024, where he had his own apartment, his grandfather told the New York Times.
"He was just trying to figure his life out," he said. "He seemed to be a little bit optimistic."
Career
Wess wanted to be a firefighter, Dave Roley told multiple outlets.
"He wanted to be a fireman – he was doing tree work and he wanted to be a fireman in the forest," Dale Roley told CNN. "As far as I know, he was actually pursuing it."
"He loved firefighters," he told NBC News. "It didn't make sense that he was shooting firefighters. Maybe he got rejected or something."
Was Wess Roley a gunowner?
Wess Roley allegedly owned a shotgun and long rifle, his grandfather told CNN. However, law enforcement officials did not say if those weapons were used in the Idaho shooting.
President Trump sent a letter to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell urging the central bank to lower interest rates "by a lot," the White House said on Monday.
Why it matters: The administration has stepped up public pressure on the Fed, with top officials floating the possibility of announcing Powell's replacement months before his term expires.
What they're saying: "Jerome 'Too Late' Powell, and his entire Board, should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen to the United States," Trump posted on Truth Social.
The intrigue: Trump's post included what appeared to be the letter, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump sent to the Fed on Monday.
"You have cost the U.S.A. a fortune — and continue to do so," the letter, which was written on a document that lists foreign nations' interest rate levels, says. "You should lower the rate by a lot!"
Trump again said that the Fed should be lowering rates to help save the government money on interest payments, a suggestion that is at odds with the Fed's mandates.
What to watch: The Fed browbeating of Trump's first term looks mild relative to that of recent months.
The threat of a "shadow Fed chair" might become reality, with reports that the Trump administration is considering naming Powell's successor as soon as this summer — a move that risks undermining Powell, whose term does not expire for another 11 months.
A spot on the Federal Reserve Board opens in January, "so we've given thought to the idea that perhaps that person would go on to become the chair when Jay Powell leaves in May," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg on Monday.
On Friday, Trump made the clearest suggestion yet that he wants the next Fed chair to do his bidding, saying he was going to nominate somebody who "wants to cut rates."
Reality check: Powell told lawmakers last week that the Fed would have likely kept cutting rates, if not for the economic threats posed by Trump's trade policy.
Inflation is at a four-year low, but projections suggest that tariffs will stoke higher prices. "If you just look at the basic data and don't look at the forecast, you would say that we would've continued cutting," Powell said at a congressional hearing.
Two Trump-nominated Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, support cuts as soon as July — though that stance does not appear to be widely shared among other officials on the Fed's rate-setting committee.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with recent background.
Kilmar Ábrego García will remain in jail for now over concerns from his legal team that he could be deported if released while awaiting trail, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The big picture: It comes after the White House last week called a report that quotes prosecutors saying Ábrego García would be sent to an unnamed third country "fake news."
Zoom in: Ábrego García's lawyers asked a judge to delay his release Friday as he awaits trial on human smuggling charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
The lawyers said they were concerned that the U.S. Marshals Service could release him from Tennessee on Friday and then Immigration and Customs Enforcement would remove him over the weekend.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled in an order Monday that he will remain in federal custody until a court appearance in mid-July.
Context: Ábrego García who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, was returned to the U.S. earlier this month, and the Justice Department was ordered to release him from prison in Tennessee while he awaited trial.
A federal judge said last week that Ábrego García is likely to eventually be deported to El Salvador, where he's originally from.
The U.S. Department of Justice has begun to prioritize stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when charged with crimes, according to a recent memo.
Driving the news: The DOJ directed attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases where naturalized citizens commit crimes, per the memo.
The DOJ calls for "civil denaturalization" in the case of "war crimes," "extrajudicial killings," "human rights abuses," and for those "convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States," as well as "terrorists."
"The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," the memo said.
Representatives for the White House, DOJ and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment on Monday evening.
What is a naturalized citizen?
Naturalization "is the process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a lawful permanent resident after meeting the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)," per U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
How many immigrants are naturalized citizens?
Of the 46.2 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2022, 24.5 million – 53% – were naturalized citizens, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of government data.
What people are eligible to become naturalized citizens?
By the numbers: In the past decade, the U.S. naturalized more than 7.9 million citizens, per the USCIS.
Naturalized citizens must undergo an involved application process, but eligibility criteria generally includes being a lawful permanent resident for at least five years, with exceptions for spouses of citizens and members of the U.S. military.
The median years spent as a permanent resident for all citizens naturalized in 2024 was 7.5 years.
The INA requires that naturalization applicants can read, write and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language and have a knowledge and understanding of U.S. history and government.
How many citizens have been denaturalized?
From 1990-2017, the DOJ filed 305 denaturalization cases, about 11 per year.
The number has surged since President Trump's first term.
What they're saying: "Denaturalization is no longer so rare," noted Cassandra Burke Robertson, a professor at Case Western Reserve University's law school, in 2019, saying that the rise began under the Obama administration, "which used improved digital tools to identify potential cases of naturalization fraud from years before."
"But the Trump administration, with its overall immigration crackdown, is taking denaturalization to new levels."
Robertson also noted that denaturalization was a common political tool of the McCarthy era.
Since January 2017, the USCIS has selected some 2,500 cases for possible denaturalization and referred at least 110 denaturalization cases to the Justice Department for prosecution by the end of August 2018.
The DOJ filed at least 30 denaturalization cases in 2017 — twice the number it filed in 2016, per The Miami Herald.
How does the DOJ guidance change things for naturalized citizenship?
In the memo, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote that pursuing denaturalization will be among the agency's top five enforcement priorities for the civil division.
"The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," he said.'
The DOJ directed attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases where "an individual either 'illegally procured' naturalization or procured naturalization by 'concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.'"
Are the DOJ's denaturalization efforts constitutional?
Robertson told NPR that the DOJ's pursuit of denaturalization cases is particularly concerning.
"Robertson says that stripping Americans of citizenship through civil litigation violates due process and infringes on the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment," NPR notes.
The denaturalization push gives the Trump administration another tool to police immigrants' free speech rights.
The Trump administration has targeted students, universities and immigrants for alleged antisemitism. Frequently, those targeted have been critical of Israel's war in Gaza.
The DOJ's memo cites "ending antisemitism" as another priority target.
The Trump administration already detained for months — and sought to deport — pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is a green card holder.
The government argued in a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that allowing Khalil to remain in the country would "undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States."
That echoes the language of the new memo, pushing for the denaturalization of those "convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States."
Has the Justice Department denaturalized anyone yet?
At least one person has already been denaturalized following a conviction recently. That person was a convicted collector and distributor of child sexual abuse material, per the DOJ.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to give more details on the person denaturalized following a conviction.
Congressional Republicans are racing toward a self-imposed July 4 deadline to pass President Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill, though its ultimate fate remains uncertain Monday afternoon.
This morning, the Senate began its marathon vote-a-rama, or a series of unlimited amendment votes, after finishing initial debate on the underlying bill last night.
Why it matters: Trump's marquee legislation would cement some of the biggest policy goals of his second term. There's been criticism from both parties over the bill's cost as well as its cuts to Medicaid, and Democrats have zeroed in on the social safety net losses, funding for immigration enforcement and rollbacks of clean energy initiatives.
The reconciliation package the Senate is considering would add $3.3 trillion in budget deficits over the next 10 years, according to a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimate.
That's more than the estimated $2.8 trillion in the House version passed by just one vote last month.
Senate Republicans eked out a late-night win Saturday with a 51-49 vote to take up the bill.
🏛️ Here's what needs to happen next to meet the July 4 deadline:
1. The full Senate must approve its version of the legislation. This could happen as soon as Monday.
Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) only needs a simple majority of 51 votes for passage under budget reconciliation rules. Republicans can only afford to lose three votes.
Zoom in: Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) are firm "no" votes.
Already, the Senate's version of the bill has significant differences from the House version, including on Medicaid work requirements, the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, wind and solar tax credits and a provision to nix taxes on tips.
2. The House and Senate would have to resolve their different versions and negotiate a unified version of the bill. (Or the House could accept the Senate's changes wholesale and move to a final vote.)
3. Both chambers ultimately must approve the same version of the bill. The House will have to come back from recess to vote on the Senate plan or a compromise — which wouldn't happen before Wednesday.
4. Trump would then be presented a bill to sign into law, which he wants to do alongside Independence Day celebrations on Friday.
OK, but what are the major hangups?
Republican infighting: Tillis has already announced he'll retire after getting Trump-backed primary threats for opposing the bill's cuts to Medicaid. But his exit and his statements about the rank partisanship of Washington underscore the extent to which moderate holdouts who will defy the president are a dwindling breed.
Parliamentarian rulings: The parliamentarian has already forced some delays to hammer out revised bill text, like on the Medicaid provider tax. Additional rulings against bill language could lead to more last-minute tweaks — and further delays.
Can Democrats do anything?
They're expected to uniformly oppose the bill, but since Congress is using the reconciliation process, they don't have the power to stop the bill on their own.
The party lacks majorities in either chamber and has little leverage, beyond forcing Senate amendment votes that put Republicans in tricky political positions — and stacking political messaging attacks for the midterms.
President Trump signed an executive order on Monday rescinding most U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria since the 1970s, a major step toward offering the war-torn country a path to normalization with the West.
Why it matters: Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former Islamist rebel who overthrew the Assad regime last year, had urged the U.S to lift sanctions to give Syria a chance to rebuild after 14 years of civil war.
Trump's executive order comes six weeks after his historic meeting with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia, where Trump first announced the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria to give the country a fresh start.
"Now it is their time to shine. We are taking them all off. Good luck Syria. Show us something very special," Trump said in a speech at the time.
Zoom in: Trump's executive order outlines a sweeping reversal of U.S. policy toward Syria dating back to 1979. It includes:
A review of Syria's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.
A potential suspension of theCaesar Act, which sanctioned the Assad regime for war crimes against civilians.
Steps to remove Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — the Islamist group formerly led by al-Sharaa — from the U.S. foreign terrorist organization list.
U.S. officials say sanctions against former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is believed to be living in Moscow, and members of his former regime will not be lifted.
Driving the news: The Trump administration is holding "preliminary discussions" with Israel and Syria on a potential securityagreement between the longtime enemy states, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Axios.
While normalization isn't on the table yet, the talks could lay the groundwork for future diplomacy — starting with efforts to reduce tensions and update security arrangements along the volatile Israel-Syria border.
Any breakthrough would represent a major diplomatic achievement for the Trump administration, given the decades of hostilities between Israel and Syria under the rule of the Assad family.
Between the lines: The U.S. favors a gradual process that would slowly build trust and improve relations between Israel and Syria.
But Israel is pushing for assurances that any talks will ultimately lead to a full peace agreement and normalization, a senior Israeli official told Axios.
Another Israeli official cautioned that a deal is "not around the corner" and said it will take time to achieve meaningful progress.
The intrigue: Israeli officials had hoped the U.S. would retain some sanctions as leverage to push Syria toward full normalization with Israel.
But a U.S. official told reporters Monday that the administration didn't see value in that approach.
"It's a benefit for Syria to lean toward Israel. President al-Sharaa said he wants to start talks with Israel. The way to entice the Syrians is to make a deal with Israel fruitful for them," the official said.
State of play: In early June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump's Syria envoy Tom Barrack that he was interested in negotiating a new security agreement with Syria's post-Assad government, brokered by the U.S.
A senior Israeli official said Netanyahu's goal is a phased set of agreements with Syria — starting with a modernized version of the 1974 disengagement of forces accord, and ultimately culminating in a full peace deal and normalization.
When Islamist militants toppled the Assad regime in a stunning rebel offensive last December, Israel responded with waves of airstrikes that systematically destroyed what remained of Syria's air force, navy, air defense, and missile systems.
Israel also took control of the buffer zone between the two countries and occupied territory inside Syria, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon.
Israeli officials now view these areas as their primary leverage in negotiations, and say Israel will only withdraw in exchange for full peace and normalization with Syria.
Behind the scenes: Israel is communicating with Syria through at least four different channels — including Netanyahu's national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, Mossad director David Barnea, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar for political and strategic dialogue, and the Israel Defense Forces for day-to-day military coordination.
But Israeli officials say they want the U.S. to take a more active mediating role, believing it would give Syria's new government a stronger incentive to engage seriously.
Senior Israeli and U.S. officials saidBarrack has been in contact with Syrian officials since his visit to Israel in early June to explore launching formal talks.
"We are having very soft preliminary discussions. Diplomatic breakthroughs are like unwrapping an onion — we are peeling," a senior U.S. official told Axios. "President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio have been super supportive, and our teams are working well."
The talks are currently limited to officials below the level of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and there is no discussion yet of a leaders' summit, a U.S. official added.
Two senior Israeli officials said a deal is possible, but emphasized that it will take time.
"We hope to see the Trump administration pushing more assertively on this track," one Israeli official said.
Friction point: One of the biggest question marks hanging over any future Israeli-Syrian peace talks is the status of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 war.
In every previous round of negotiations over the past three decades, the Assad regime demanded a full — or nearly full — Israeli withdrawal from the territory in exchange for peace.
During his first term, Trump recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel — a move that the Biden administration did not reverse.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Monday that Israel is open to an agreement with Syria, but insisted that the Golan Heights will remain part of Israel under any future deal.
A U.S. official told reporters that the Trump administration is ready to assist in brokering an Israel-Syria deal, but that the details — including border delineation and the future of the Golan Heights — will be left to the two countries.
"It is up to them, not up to us," the official said.
The official added that the goal is to build trust gradually, starting with a limited security agreement that could lay the foundation for a broader peace.
What to watch: Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's close confidant and minister for strategic affairs, is visiting Washington this week for meetings with White House officials.
The potential deal with Syria will be one of the issues discussed, Israeli officials say.
Netanyahu will also visit the White House on July 7 and discuss Syria with Trump, in addition to other regional issues, an Israeli official told Axios.
The U.S. has now collected more than $100 billion in customs revenue since President Trump took office, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The vast majority of that is from tariffs, as Trump's trade policy begins to generate substantial income for the government.
Driving the news: Total customs revenue from actions taken since Jan. 20 — including tariffs, taxes and fees — hit $106.1 billion as of last Friday, according to Customs and Border Protection documents seen by Axios.
Most of that, $81.5 billion in total, is from tariffs imposed since Jan. 20.
Zoom out: The revenue from Trump's sweeping global levies is substantially higher than in past years.
For the current fiscal year through the end of May, collections are about 65% higher than the same period the year prior, per Treasury data.
The overall effective tariff rate is now at the highest level since the late 1930s, per the Yale Budget Lab.
What to watch: At current levels, annual collections are pacing ahead of the administration's own estimates.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and trade advisor Peter Navarro have previously estimated tariffs could generate north of $300 billion in revenue.
President Trump heads back to Florida on Tuesday to tour "Alligator Alcatraz," a controversial new detention facility in the Everglades to incarcerate those who immigrated illegally or face deportation.
Why it matters: The $450 million 1,000-bed facility of trailers and tents is the largest of its kind and solidifies Florida's position as the top state cooperating with Trump's immigration crackdown.
Florida already leads the nation in cross-deputizing local police to enforce federal immigration laws, a priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The idea and name of "Alligator Alcatraz" is the brainchild of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who was appointed by DeSantis after serving as his chief of staff.
The intrigue: Uthmeier hatched the plan for Alligator Alcatraz in near-secret and worked with DeSantis's office and the Department of Homeland Security to avoid any opposition before it was too late for significant opposition to materialize.
DHS has blessed the project with $450 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's "Shelter and Services Program," which President Biden had tapped to help house migrants in hotels to welcome them to the United States.
Now the Trump administration is using that program to detain and help deport them.
The site is owned by Miami-Dade County, but DeSantis is developing the site and essentially taking it over by exercising emergency authority he granted himself in 2023 to deal with a flood of migrants who came during the Biden administration.
Zoom in:Alligator Alcatraz is surrounded by wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park and is almost dead center between the East and West coasts of Florida.
The nearly 25,000-acre site is not pristine wetlands, however. It's a one-runway airplane facility called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.
The runway was supposed to be one of six in what was to be the world's largest airport at the time in the 1960s. That project, the Everglades Jetport, was abandoned amid protests from the nascent environmental movement at the time.
Zoom out: Environmentalists oppose the project because of the impacts on wildlife (such as the endangered Florida panther), and development of the site runs contrary to desires to get rid of the jetport.
Immigration advocates and Democrats oppose Alligator Alcatraz because it's touted as deliberately cruel to detainees.
The state and federal governments say environmental impacts will be minimal and the state has to put detainees somewhere as more migrants are being rounded up and are increasingly overcrowding federal immigration lockups like Krome Detention Center.
Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.) said Monday he will retire in 2026 after initially telling Axios he planned to run for reelection to his Philadelphia-based seat.
Why it matters: The 71-year-old is the latest in what many younger Democrats hope will be a wave of septuagenarian and octogenarian lawmakers opting not to try to hold onto their seats.
The party is engaged in an internal civil war over age, with older lawmakers across the country facing primary challenges from younger insurgents tired of waiting for them to retire.
Evans, who suffered a stroke last year that kept him from voting at the Capitol for much of 2024 and has since confined him to a walker, has been among the prime targets of those efforts.
What he's saying: "I remain in good health and fully capable of continuing to serve," Evans said in a statement.
But, he added, "After some discussions this weekend and thoughtful reflection, I have decided that the time is right to announce that I will not be seeking re-election in 2026."
The House Democrat, who has served in Congress since 2016 and was previously a state legislator for 35 years, said he will serve out the remainder of his term through Jan. 3, 2027.
Zoom out: Evans is the third House Democrat this year to announce their retirement without plans to seek higher office. All were over 70.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said in April he would retire — and relinquish his role as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee — after his esophageal cancer returned. The 75-year-old died the following month.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), 81, announced in May she would retire amid a primary challenge from 26-year-old progressive Kat Abughazaleh.
What to watch: Democrats' younger wing is hoping this will just be the beginning, with progressive groups saying they expect dozens of older incumbents to face primary challenges.
The hope among grassroots activists is that many of these incumbent members will be compelled to retire rather than fight brutal reelection battles after years of facing only token opposition.
But more than half of the 30 House Democrats who are 75 or older have told Axios they plan to run for reelection — setting the stage for bruising fights across the country.
Editor's note; This story has been updated with additional reporting.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Monday that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by "acting with deliberate indifference towards harassment of Jewish and Israeli students" after the Oct. 7 attack.
The big picture: The announcement is yet another escalation in the Trump administration's pressure campaign against the Ivy League institution, which has refused to yield to Washington's demands.
Harvard is facing off against the administration in court over the freezing of billions in federal funds and its attempts to block the school from hosting international students.
Driving the news: The findings, per a statement from HHS, document that a "hostile environment existed, and continues to exist, at Harvard."
Administration officials, in a letter addressed to Harvard University President Alan Garber, said that "failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources."
In a 57-page notice of violation, the HHS office pointed to three areas of "repeated ineffectual action and inaction," alleging Harvard failed to establish clear procedures to report and remediate antisemitic harassment, uniformly implement disciplinary measures and "allowed protesters to flout time, place and manner restrictions."
What they're saying: A university spokesperson condemned antisemitism as "unacceptable" in a statement provided to Axios and said the university has taken "substantive, proactive steps" to address the root causes of it.
In response to the federal investigation, the spokesperson said, Harvard shared its Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias Report with the administration and outlined the steps it has taken to strengthen policies and discipline those who violate them.
"Harvard has made significant strides to combat bigotry, hate and bias," the statement continued. "We are not alone in confronting this challenge and recognize that this work is ongoing."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke of the HHS findings during a briefing Monday, calling it a "violent violation" of Title VI.
"These are all facts that Harvard cannot dispute, and that's why the administration has found them in violation of Title VI and has threatened to withhold their federal funding," she said. "Because if you break federal law, you should not be receiving federal tax dollars."
Friction point: Despite President Trump recently suggesting a potential detente with Harvard was on the horizon, Monday's notice puts new fuel on the fire.
HHS noted that Monday's findings do not address a separate Title VI investigation into the Harvard Law Review over alleged "race-based discrimination."
Beyond the investigations, the Trump administration has battered the university from various fronts and has also threatened to revoke the university's tax-exempt status.
Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout with new information.
The S&P 500 was on track to hit a new record on Friday, but then sank when President Trump announced the termination of trade talks with Canada over a controversial digital services tax.
Within an hour, investors decided not to care, and stocks closed at an all-time high for the first time since February.
Why it matters: Wall Street is largely post-tariff. The market is a forward-looking machine, and it's already priced in better-than-expected trade deals before they are signed.
What they're saying: Headline-driven volatility is a given under this administration, so don't let it impact your portfolio, advisors say. (Example A: Canada scrapped the aforementioned tax Sunday night.)
Jay Pelosky of TPW Advisors sayshe pays "no attention" to tariff policy anymore.
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, indicated that Trump may be "outsmarting everyone" in a recent note, arguing any extension of the 90-day tariff pause, which Trump has signaled, would decrease uncertainty.
Lower uncertainty is good news for both businesses and investors.
Friday's action was "reflecting the improved investor sentiment and overall investor confidence," says Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments.
Zoom in: There are several bullish signals that strategists would rather focus on than tariffs, which fueled the 19% drop in stocks just a couple months ago.
Expectations are building around the "big, beautiful bill" being passed sooner rather than later, which could be a fresh catalyst.
Recent declines in the dollar may be a long-term risk, but for now, this could be a cushion that drives earnings beats across the big tech names.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent continues to pitch an economic agenda built on a three-legged stool — tax, trade and deregulation — as investors salivate over the prospect of looser government oversight.
Reality check: Economists caution that a slowdown in consumer spending, which is already happening, could worsen as tariff-driven inflation takes full effect.
It will be another couple of months until we know how much increased tariffs have affected inflation, according to Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist at RSM US.
"It's summer silly season," says Brusuelas, who cautions investors that FOMO is driving positive sentiment while risks remain.
He argues a reassessment of valuations will come when, not if, the data shows further tariff impacts.
The other side: Some hyper-optimistic strategists may argue a slowdown in consumer spending off the back of higher prices is bullish since there could be a subsequent rebound if trade deals are struck.
Spending slowed when uncertainty was at a record high. If uncertainty wanes, maybe spending roars right back. The argument clashes directly with the idea that the inflation driven by tariffs is just beginning.
The bottom line: Consensus is building around the idea that investors can stomach headline volatility around policy uncertainty, but they can't afford to miss out on the rallies that come after.
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago is adding a new twist to its curriculum for medical students and residents, using AI tools and learning modules to teach how to more quickly identify measles rashes on different skin tones.
Why it matters: It's another reminder that diseases once thought to have been eradicated are showing up with increased frequency in clinics and ERs, posing challenges for younger physicians and health workers who thought they were relegated to history.
Lingering vaccine hesitancy and distrust of the medical establishment stoked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are leading some health systems to add training on old scourges that were practically wiped out by immunization campaigns and increased surveillance.
"You're taught these things in medical school, and you're taught from a very academic perspective with the sense of measles was eradicated in 2000," said Nicholas Cozzi, EMS medical director at Rush.
"Now we're having a resurgence, the highest in 25 years, and you might have not reviewed that since the first year of medical school," he added. "It's a new paradigm and a new normal that we have to adapt to."
The big picture: The focus is particularly acute on childhood illnesses such as measles, chicken pox, invasive strep pneumoniae and pertussis, experts told Axios.
Polio and diphtheria, covered by the DTap vaccine, are also a concern. An unvaccinated 10-year-old boy died in Germany after contracting diphtheria, once the leading cause of premature death of children.
Rubella — a less easily transmitted infection covered by the MMR vaccine — can also be a threat, because of the way it can infect a fetus during pregnancy, said Catherine Troisi, professor at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health and chair-elect of the International Network of Epidemiology in Policy.
Vaccination rates for U.S. kindergartners were down slightly in 2023-24 for the DTap, polio, chickenpox and MMR shots, according to CDC data.
Zoom in: Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said rotavirus is another old disease that's being introduced to younger doctors.
"That virus dominated my residency [in the 1970s]. We had 400 kids admitted every winter," Offit said. That was before a vaccine was licensed in 2006 and virtually eliminated 70,000 hospitalizations with severe diarrhea annually, he added.
"Now it's the rare child who ever gets admitted. Most pediatric residents have never seen a case of rotavirus-induced dehydration in the hospital," he said.
It will likely take time for medical schools and residency programs to formally change their training, Troisi pointed out.
Medical professionals are being advised to stay current on public health advisories, ask patients about travel histories and be on guard for less likely conditions that may present as more common ailments.
They may also have to brush up on best practices for spinal taps in infants and toddlers, an invasive diagnostic tool that is seldom used today but can quickly turn up telltale signs such as inflamed membranes, said Adrianna Cadilla, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Nemours Children's Health in Orlando.
"When I trained, I would hear my attendings tell us about how often they had to do lumbar punctures because that was when Hemophilus influenza type B was running rampant," Cadilla said. "I only got to do probably one every ER shift, but that was a lot in comparison to now."
The hospital is using simulations to get medical students and residents more experienced in doing spinal tap on infants and wriggling older children, she said.
What to watch: New outbreaks could force more on-the-fly adjustments, especially in areas with low vaccination rates and the prospect of fewer recommended childhood immunizations.
Artificial intelligence is an emerging as a valuable tool in more quickly recognizing the medical conditions that may be of greater concern, Cozzi said. "That's a game changer," he said.
