Trump's threat to push ahead on settlement fund injects new uncertainty into attorney general talks
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to push forward with a fund to compensate his allies if two Republican holdouts do not support his nominee for attorney general, injecting fresh uncertainty into a Senate confirmation vote planned for next week and underscoring once more his interest in securing payouts for supporters who feel unjustly persecuted.
Trump asserted in his Truth Social post that he would keep acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in his current role and press ahead on the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” if Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina refuse to back the former federal prosecutor who was a key member of Trump’s defense team at a time when the Republican battled four indictments.
The administration needs their votes, but both lawmakers have protested Blanche's selection because of a lawsuit settlement that created a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system and provided Trump and family members with immunity from tax audits.
In a sign of apparent progress Friday, Trump pronounced the fund “dead.” As negotiations continued into the night, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, rescheduled a committee vote for Blanche that had been postponed earlier in the week.
A spokesperson for the committee said Grassley, R-Iowa, would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess and that putting the Tuesday vote on the calendar “gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee.”
'I just want a chance': Moroccans sought better future in collective crossing to Spain territory
CEUTA, Spain (AP) — When he heard the border had been breached, Abdulah Buji jumped on his motorbike and raced from his home in northern Morocco toward Ceuta, joining tens of thousands of people trying to swim into the tiny Spanish territory in North Africa.
Like many of his fellow countrymen, Buji was inspired by the thought that this collective crossing could somehow unlock his dream of reaching Spain and starting a new life in Europe.
“Spain gives you the chance to make your future, not like Morocco,” said Buji, a 21-year-old who is studying to be a teacher. “I am a talented boy. I just want a chance.”
But his elation at setting foot on Spanish soil was quickly followed by the disheartening realization that he was still far from his ultimate goal. Mainland Europe rested across the Mediterranean, and he and the new arrivals were unwanted. Spanish authorities ordered everyone to turn around and go back or face eventual expulsion.
Buji said he almost joined more than 50 people who died trying to reach Ceuta while swimming around a border fence. He made it across, but he lost his belongings and money in the crossing. When he realized that he would likely face legal limbo and detention, he turned around and headed back.
Trump stands to profit off US policy announcements by selling fast access to his social media posts
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump knows the world hangs on his every word. Now he wants you to pay for it.
The social media posts of the world's most powerful man are going on sale Saturday when his Truth Social business begins offering sneak peeks of them to Wall Street traders willing to pay up. The move raises the prospect of big profits for Trump's company and big questions about insider trading and using public office for private gain.
Similar fast speed feeds are sold by other social media firms and media providers, but Truth Social doesn't just distribute the news, it makes it, regularly rattling markets as Trump posts policy changes on everything from war to central bank leadership to tariffs.
“If this was the CEO a public company, this would be jail time," said Irene Aldridge, head of Able Alpha Trading, which doesn't plan to buy the service. “We have a President of the United States who has the front seat to all the action, who makes all the decisions, and he's disclosing this ahead of time to a select group.”
Asked about the propriety of the new service and whether White House lawyers had vetted it, Trump’s press office declined to comment, referring questions to Truth Social’s publicly traded parent. That company, Trump Media & Technology, issued a statement blasting Democratic critics for mischaracterizing the service “out of ideological opposition to free markets or a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information — or, quite possibly, both.”
Trump threatens more strikes on Iran. Tensions from Hormuz to Kuwait and Gaza lead to more warnings
CAIRO (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened more strikes on Iran as the United States presses for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Hours later on Saturday, Kuwait said it responded to a new round of drone attacks from Iran while a tanker was struck in the strategic waterway.
Meanwhile, Israel carried out heavy strikes on the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed to disarm.
Here are the most important developments in the Middle East today:
Speaking to reporters Friday during a meeting with members of his Cabinet at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, Trump said “we just want to win” in Iran and signaled that he expected U.S. military action to continue for some time.
Spain installs sea barrier on Ceuta's border with Morocco after frontier rush that killed 67
CEUTA, Spain (AP) — Spain on Saturday installed a 500-meter-long (1,600-foot) barrier on the sea border between its North African territory of Ceuta and neighboring Morocco after tens of thousands of migrants breached the frontier earlier in the week.
At least 67 migrants died, including some who drowned and others who were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier, the Spanish government said Saturday. The sudden arrival of 50,000 to 60,000 migrants in the territory on Thursday and Friday sparked a humanitarian crisis and reignited the immigration debate in Europe and beyond, though most of the migrants soon went back.
Critics of Spain’s socialist government, notably right and far-right politicians, seized upon the dramatic images of crowds storming into Ceuta, which sits on the Strait of Gibraltar at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea and has been a Spanish possession since 1580. Spain’s migration policy has focused on granting legal status to workers lacking authorization who entered the country before 2026 to boost its economy, in contrast with the anti-migration and pro-deportation policies promoted across much of the EU and in the U.S.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez slammed the reaction of some EU leaders to the events in Ceuta, saying calls for Spain to be suspended from the EU's borderless Schengen zone were “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest.” Despite the Ceuta crisis, Spain in recent years has had fewer illegal migrants cross into the country than Mediterranean neighbors Italy and Greece.
On Saturday morning, a handful of migrants who swam to Ceuta's urban Tarajal beach were met by soldiers who escorted them across the border.
Multiple people dead after shooting at fast food restaurant in southern Idaho
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A shooting at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in southern Idaho on Saturday afternoon left multiple people dead and others injured, police said.
The shooter was among the dead, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said in a news conference. Police were still trying to determine the shooter’s identity and motive.
“We believe the threat to the community is over,” Hicks said. He added that he did not yet know exactly how many were killed or wounded, and officials were still in the process of notifying next of kin. “It was a very chaotic scene.”
Before the news conference, Twin Falls County Commissioner Brent Reinke said Sheriff Jack Johnson