NATO charms Trump
Good morning!🙋🏼♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert. The internet is loving Mr. Cardamom.
Unpacking NATO's Trump kindness campaign
Flattery and acquiescence to President Donald Trump seems to have worked for NATO leaders, who got a concession they desperately wanted at the summit this week: The U.S. president's commitment to the alliance's principle of mutual defense among its 32 members.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte lead the charm offensive: After an angry Trump used profanity Tuesday in ripping Israel and Iran for violating the terms of the ceasefire he had helped negotiate, Rutte cheekily said, "Daddy has to sometimes use strong language." Rutte said he was not calling Trump 'daddy,' explaining the remark was a metaphor for U.S. leadership.
Is the heat wave over yet?
I'm sorry, to say no. Millions of Americans still need to take precautions Thursday to stay safe from dangerous, —seemingly relentless — heat. The most significant heat conditions are expected to continue across the Mid-Atlantic through Thursday, with forecasts for sweltering temperature in the eastern Ohio Valley into Friday, according to the National Weather Service. For those still experiencing the oppressive heat, here are some tips for how to find your own bit of relief.
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What's the weather today? Check your local forecast here.
Meet the future of the NBA: Cooper Flagg
Cooper Flagg is officially a Dallas Maverick. The franchise selected the former Duke basketball star Wednesday with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft. The 6-foot-7 forward will join Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis with the Mavericks, who are looking to turn around the franchise following the shocking midseason trade of Luka Dončić in February. Maybe now Mavs fans will forgive general manager Nico Harrison for trading Dončić ...
USA TODAY Sports is following everything about the 2025 NBA draft:
Have Sean 'Diddy' Combs' trial charges been dropped?
As a verdict nears in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial, prosecutors are no longer pursuing some of their previous claims against the embattled hip-hop mogul, although top charges remain. In a June 24 letter to Judge Arun Subramanian, attorneys for the U.S. government revealed they are withdrawing some of their criminal allegations against Combs ahead of closing arguments in his sweeping federal sex-crimes case, according to court documents reviewed by USA TODAY. The move was made as part of an effort to "streamline" instructions that will soon be issued to jurors as they head into deliberations.
Today's talkers
Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez are having a luxury wedding. The internet is enraged.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are gearing up for what will likely be one of the most luxurious weddings of all time − and the internet already hates everything about it. The couple, who went public with their relationship in 2019 and got engaged in 2023, will tie the knot in Venice, Italy, the city previously confirmed. Regional governor Luca Zaia estimates the festivities to cost $23 to $34 million. Backlash online has only grown. As one user put it: "Some 100 private jets will fly to Venice for Jeff Bezos' wedding, and I recycle yogurt cup lids."
Photo of the day: 10 years of same-sex marriage in America
As the country marks 10 years of nationwide marriage equality on Thursday, LGBTQ+ couples told USA TODAY efforts for LGBTQ+ equality and safety in America are far from finished. The Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision made on June 26, 2015, represented decades of work by LGBTQ+ activists. USA TODAY took a look back at celebrations from that day.
Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note? Shoot her an email at NFallert@usatoday.com.
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New York Post
9 minutes ago
- New York Post
How Cooper Flagg can make a staggering $930 million after being drafted No. 1
If all goes according to plan, Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg will look a lot like Scrooge McDuck throughout his 20s and 30s. Spotrac projects that if No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft is a superstar –– meaning he hits certain All-NBA Team thresholds, as well as MVP voting criteria –– Flagg will earn $930 million by the time he is 31 years old. Flagg will first sign a lucrative four-year, $62.7 million rookie contract with the Mavericks that runs through the 2028-29 season. It's those future deals, though, that will require teams to back up the Brinks trucks for him. After his rookie deal ends, he could sign a supermax extension worth $359 million from the 2029-30 season through the 2033-34 campaign. 3 Cooper Flagg will be a rich man throughout his 20s after being drafted at 18 years old. NBAE via Getty Images That contract that would count for 30 percent of the team's salary cap. If he's as good as everyone suspects, potentially a multiple-time MVP candidate, he would be eligible for another supermax extension in 2034 worth $509 million that would take him through the 2038-39 season That deal would count for 35 percent of the team's salary cap. Follow The Post's coverage of the 2025 NBA Draft In order to qualify for the supermax, a player must make an All-NBA team or have won Defensive Player of the Year or MVP in the last three years, according to the league's collective bargaining agreement. This nearly $1 billion figure does does not include endorsements, and Flagg will surely sign a massive shoe deal now that he is in the NBA. 3 Cooper Flagg will be saying ca-ching throughout his NBA career. Getty Images He previously latched on with New Balance to wear their shoes, although he had to don Nike during his freshman year since Duke has a sponsorship deal with the company. Flagg is already rich as he reportedly made $28 million in NIL money in his lone season in Durham, with his deal with New Balance worth $13 million and a Fanatics deal worth $15 million. 3 Cooper Flagg is already a millionaire, and he's going to be a billionaire in his 30s if all things go to plan. Getty Images Flagg, 18, could be a on billionaire path before he even plays in his first NBA game, and making things even more interesting is that he will begin his career in a state — Texas — with no income tax. Compared to being drafted by one of the league's four California teams, he's saving $123.69 million in state income taxes alone if he signs all of his contracts with the Mavericks. Flagg reclassified in high school, skipping a grade so he could get to the NBA faster. He is the youngest player to be drafted No. 1 overall since LeBron James in 2003. James achieved billionaire status in June 2022, 19 years after being drafted.
CNN
10 minutes ago
- CNN
New research shows Trump's 2024 support became more ethnically and racially diverse
President Donald Trump's 2024 victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris was fueled by 'a voter coalition that was more racially and ethnically diverse than in 2020 or 2016,' as well by an advantage among voters who didn't turn out for the previous election, according to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. Pew's analysis, which combines survey data from its in-house panel of poll-takers with information from voter records, contributes to a more clearly emerging picture of the 2024 electorate. It finds that about three-quarters of eligible voters in the U.S. made the same decision in 2024 that they did in 2020, whether that was voting for the Republican or the Democrat, choosing a third-party candidate or sitting out the election altogether. But one-quarter made a different choice – enough to return Trump to the White House. Trump held onto 85% of his 2020 voters, the report finds, while Harris retained a smaller 79% of former President Joe Biden's supporters. Compared to 2020, Trump won a higher share of the vote among Hispanic voters (48%, up from 36%), Asian voters (40%, up from 30%) and Black voters (15%, up from 8%). 'These shifts were largely the result of differences in which voters turned out in the 2020 and 2024 elections,' the authors of the Pew report conclude. 'As in the past, a relatively small share of voters switched which party's candidate they supported.' Fifteen percent of 2020 Biden supporters and 11% of 2020 Trump supporters didn't vote four years later, their analysis finds. Trump also won about 5% of Biden's 2020 supporters, while Harris took about 3% of voters who supported Trump in the previous election. And while most eligible voters who didn't cast a vote in 2020 stayed home again last year, those who did decide to vote in 2024 broke for Trump over Harris, 54% to 42%. Adding in people who were too young to vote in the last election, the margin is slightly narrower. Pew's analysis is based on the results of a survey conducted just after November's presidential election. Like all surveys, its results offer an estimate of voter behavior rather than an attempt at pinpoint precision. That's why different post-election analyses may diverge in some findings about the electorate, even when they converge around a general consensus. The new analysis, like a report last month from the Democratic-aligned data firm Catalist, incorporates fresh sources of data: information from commercial voters files that aggregate official state turnout records. Pew's analysis matches that voter file data with responses to their survey – and because its polls are conducted using a panel of respondents who answer multiple surveys over time, researchers there can often track specific individuals' voting patterns. Catalist's report similarly found that voters who turn out irregularly played a key role in Trump's victory. Since non-presidential elections typically see lower turnout, that could also have potential implications as the parties begin gearing up for the upcoming midterms. 'There's definitely some evidence that this shift in Democrats doing better among more consistent voters may have some downstream impacts,' said Hannah Hartig, a senior researcher at Pew Research – although she noted that, with a long way still to go until the next election, it's too early to know how that may play out. A few more takeaways from the Pew report: Trump also improved his numbers among male voters, who split for Trump by a 12-point margin in 2024 after dividing closely between the candidates in 2020. There was especially sharp movement among male voters younger than 50 – while they were about evenly split last year, that marked a swing from a 10-point preference for Biden in 2020. Both Pew and Catalist show Democrats losing more ground among male voters than female voters, while exit polling and post-election data from Votecast found that erosion across gender lines. Education remains a major fault line in American politics. College graduates who voted in 2024 broke for Harris by a 16-point margin in Pew's data, while those without degrees broke for Trump by 14 points – although both those findings represent an improvement for Trump from his 2020 numbers. That education gap persisted among both White and Hispanic voters, while Black voters didn't divide significantly along educational lines. Catalist's report found similar educational trends, but charted somewhat less of a divide among Latino voters, while exit polling and VoteCast had showed college graduates' preferences remaining more stable. Naturalized citizens of the U.S. made up about 9% of last year's electorate, according to Pew. And in 2024, they were closely divided, with 51% backing Harris and 47% backing Trump. By contrast, in 2020, this group broke heavily for Biden. The design of Pew's study also allowed them to check in with nonvoters: adults who were eligible to vote, but weren't a part of the 64% who actually turned out. In the past, this group typically leaned Democratic: asked whom they would have preferred if they had voted, 2020 nonvoters favored Biden over Trump by an 11-point margin. But in 2024, nonvoters were closely split, with 44% preferring Trump and 40% Harris. 'If somehow something magic had happened and everybody who's eligible to vote had actually showed up, not only would it not have helped the Democrats and Harris, it might have actually pushed Trump's margin up slightly,' said Scott Keeter, a senior survey advisor at Pew. The Pew Research Center surveyed 8,942 US adults in November 2024, using the nationally representative American Trends Panel, including 7,100 voters who were able to be matched against a voter file. Results among the full sample of validated voters have a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points. More details on the survey methodology are available here.
Fox News
12 minutes ago
- Fox News
Trump's crown jewel Abraham Accords may expand to normalize ties between Israel and other nations
JERUSALEM — President Donald Trump's signature Middle East agreement — the Abraham Accords — which normalized relations between Israel and Sunni Gulf States and North African countries, might absorb new candidates, according to Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy to the Middle East. "We think we will have some pretty big announcements on countries that are coming into the Abraham Accords," Witkoff told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday. One of the largest Hebrew-language outlets, Israel Hayom, reported Tuesday that Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi believes those countries are Syria and Lebanon as the top Middle East states who could join the Abraham Accords. According to Israel Hayom, Hanegbi disclosed during a classified meeting with the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel maintains direct dialogue with Syria's new government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former member of the U.S.-designated terrorist movements, the Islamic State and al Qaeda. Middle East expert Eugene Kontorovich, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital, "With Iran humiliated, Lebanon and Syria are quite realistic, but I would be impressed if it were soon as in months. I do expect them to make peace with Israel and come into the Abraham Accords during Trump's term." He added that "Syria could be possible simply because the new government has so much to gain, as it seeks legitimacy." Witkoff's teasing of an expansion of the Abraham Accords has electrified the Israeli media and veteran Middle East observers. In May, Trump asked Syrian President al-Sharaa to fully normalize relations with Israel in exchange for sanctions relief. "The barriers of entry for expanding the Abraham Accords are incredibly low. It will not surprise me if President Trump expands the Accords within his second term," Robert Greenway, former senior director for the National Security Council and key architect of the Abraham Accords, told Maria Bartiromo, on "Mornings With Maria" on FOX Business. After the completion of the Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in 2020, there was a growing expectation among U.S. officials and Middle East experts that Saudi Arabia would follow suit. In February, Fox News Digital reported that Trump administration officials said the White House was seeking an expansion of the Abraham Accords. The Biden administration faced criticism for failing to expand the Abraham Accords and for picking fights with states who made peace with Israel as part of the landmark agreement. Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, the Israeli prime minister's office and the country's foreign affairs ministry for comment.
