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US House passes Trump’s showpiece tax bill

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US House passes Trump’s showpiece tax bill

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The US House of Representatives has passed Donald Trump’s showpiece tax bill by a single vote after days of wrangling between disparate factions of his Republican party, paving the way for the first big legislative success of his second term.

The Republican-controlled House voted just before 7am on Thursday in Washington by 215-214 to approve the more than 1,000-page legislation, which would slash taxes, reduce social spending and increase federal debt.

“This is arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

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“Now it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” he added.

The sprawling legislation, which Trump has called his “big, beautiful bill”, has been at the centre of a fierce battle among Republican lawmakers in recent days.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had battled to overcome sticking points including cuts to state-backed healthcare spending and clean-energy tax credits, and the level of state and local taxes that can be deducted from federal levies.

Moments before its passage, Johnson hailed the legislation as a “turning point in American history”, adding that its Democratic opponents were voting for “the largest tax increase” in US history.

But Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader of the House, said the bill would deprive at least 13.7mn people of their healthcare insurance, “taking food out of the mouths of children, disabled Americans, veterans and older Americans” because of cuts to food stamps.

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“It’s one, big ugly bill,” he said. “It’s an assault on the economy . . . to enact the largest tax breaks for billionaires in American history.”

The bill’s razor-thin passage by the House marks a big political victory for Trump, whose approval ratings have languished following weeks of market turmoil triggered by his trade war.

The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the legislation will increase US national debt by more than $3.3tn over the next decade, increasing federal government debt held by the public from about 98 per cent of GDP to a record 125 per cent.

Investors have closely watched the bill amid concerns about the US’s growing fiscal deficit, which led Moody’s to strip the US of its triple A credit rating last week and pushed up bond yields, which move inversely to prices.

The yield on 30-year US Treasuries climbed to 5.14 per cent following the passage of the bill, extending a rise of more than 0.2 percentage points this week.

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The S&P 500 share index had fallen 1.6 per cent on Wednesday as concern about the deficit spilled into equity markets. Futures indicated a further 0.5 per cent decline on Thursday.

The bill would make tax provisions from Trump’s first administration — including individual income tax cuts — that would otherwise expire at the end of this year.

It would also slash taxes on tips and overtime pay, following Trump’s pledges during his successful 2024 presidential campaign and increase spending on border security.

Republicans have sought to reduce the price tag of the bill by slashing nearly $800bn from Medicaid — the US healthcare scheme for those on low incomes — and hundreds of billions more from the food stamp programme and clean energy tax credits.

Shares in solar energy companies fell sharply in premarket trading following passage of the bill.

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Sunrun fell by as much as 40 per cent in pre-market trading on Thursday. Enphase Energy stock was down 19 per cent. NextEra, the largest renewables developer in the US, fell by 4 per cent. 

Thursday’s vote came after Republicans who opposed the bill met Trump at the White House the day before.

The president also visited Capitol Hill this week to urge his party to pass the legislation after conservatives expressed concern about its cost and moderate Republicans pushed for a greater state and local tax deduction.

Russell Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, has said that the legislation includes the most significant spending cuts in the past three decades.

While some conservatives had pushed for further cuts, only two Republicans voted against the bill — Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio — because of its impact on the US debt.

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“Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now,” Davidson posted on X.

The bill’s passage also came a day after the death of Gerald Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, whose vote could have denied the Republicans a majority.

Additional reporting by Jamie Smyth

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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