Lula Appeals to Brazil Supreme Court to Uphold Tax Hike Plan
The government will ask the top court to restore the decree, arguing that the move to overturn it was unconstitutional and violated the separation of powers, Attorney General Jorge Messias told reporters at a Tuesday morning press conference.
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New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
El Salvador Changes Constitution, Ending Term Limits for Nayib Bukele
El Salvador's National Assembly on Thursday approved sweeping changes to the nation's Constitution, paving the way for President Nayib Bukele, who is in his second term in office, to run for re-election indefinitely. The legislature, in which Mr. Bukele's party holds a supermajority, voted to end presidential term limits and extend a president's term in office from five years to six, according to the National Assembly's X account. Mr. Bukele was first elected in 2019 and successfully ran in 2024 for a second term, even though legal scholars said at the time that El Salvador's Constitution barred a president from serving consecutive terms. After Mr. Bukele's legislative allies installed new judges on the Supreme Court, the court reinterpreted the Constitution and cleared the way for the president to run again. The 44-year-old president has consolidated power while in office, leading his Nuevas Ideas party to its supermajority in the legislature and cracking down on gangs through mass arrests. Killings and extortion by gangs have gone down dramatically under Mr. Bukele, but civil liberties have also deteriorated, Salvadoran human rights defenders say. In June, Mr. Bukele said he would rather be called a dictator than let criminals operate with impunity. He has also positioned himself as President Trump's closest ally in Latin America, playing a role in Mr. Trump's deportation plans by imprisoning immigrants expelled from the United States, in exchange for the return to El Salvador of members of the MS-13 gang who had been in U.S. custody. The amendments to five articles of the Constitution quickly passed on Thursday, with 57 votes in favor and three opposed, the National Assembly said on X. The changes will ensure that presidential elections coincide with legislative and municipal elections, Ana Figueroa, the Nuevas Ideas lawmaker who proposed the amendments, wrote on social media after the vote. She also noted that legislators and local officials, like mayors, do not have term limits. Mr. Bukele's current term ends in 2029, but Ms. Figueroa said that it should end in 2027 to coincide with legislative elections, at which point he could run for a six-year term.
CNN
44 minutes ago
- CNN
Elon Musk gave $15 million to Republican allies just before announcing his own America Party
Billionaire Elon Musk donated a total of $15 million in June to super PACs favoring President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans ahead of next year's midterm elections, new campaign finance reports show. The donations of $5 million each to MAGA Inc., the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund came on June 27 – amid Musk's bitter feuding with President Donald Trump over federal spending legislation – and just days before the world's richest man declared he would form his own political party. The newly disclosed donations underscore Musk's outsize influence in US politics and raise fresh questions about what role the mercurial businessman might play in elections moving forward. The Tesla CEO emerged in Thursday's filings as the largest individual contributor to each of those congressional super PACs. Separately, campaign reports with the Federal Election Commission show Musk this year plowed more than $45 million of his own money into America PAC, the super PAC he oversees – as he worked, unsuccessfully, to shape the outcome of a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. In the 2024 election, Musk spent more than $290 million to help elect Trump and his favored congressional candidates. He served as a top White House adviser and the leader of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency for several months this year before stepping back from government work to focus on his companies. At the time, he signaled he also might pull back on his political spending. But by early July, Musk was publicly battling again with Trump and congressional Republicans over domestic policy legislation Musk said would explode the deficit. He also pledged to form the America Party, although there are few signs that he has taken concrete steps in that direction. Thursday's report with the FEC covers his super PAC's activity only through the end of June. This story and headline have been updated to reflect an additional $5 million donation disclosed Thursday. CNN's Alex Leeds Matthews and David Adkins contributed to this report.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
'Doing its best to dismantle the Constitution': Biden slams Trump administration
Former President Joe Biden on Thursday accused President Donald Trump and his administration of trying to "dismantle the constitution." At the National Bar Association's 100th Annual Awards Gala, Biden said the Trump White House "is doing its best" to go after the nation's core principles and that "they've been doing it all too often with the help of a Congress that's just sitting on the sidelines and enabled by the highest court in the nation." The speech echoed the "Soul of the Nation" theme in Biden's 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns. "In the life of our nation there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before from everything that follows. Moments that force us to confront hard truths about ourselves, our institutions and democracy itself," Biden said in his July 31 speech. "We are, in my view, at such a moment in American history." The former president also swiped at law firms that have made deals with the Trump administration, saying they were "bending to bullies." Biden, who accepted the association's C. Francis Stradford Award, called on lawyers in the room to defend the rule of law. "It means take the client that can't write the big check but needs protecting of basic fundamental rights. It means sign on to that brief that may draw the ire of people in power, but you know its the right thing to do," Biden said. Biden, Obama contrast on Trump responses Biden's remarks came just over a week after former President Barack Obama issued a statement in response to Trump's accusations of treason and the posting of an AI generated video of the 44th President being arrested. The statement, attributed to a spokesperson, called Trump's comments a "ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction" from the ongoing controversy surrounding the Trump administration's handling of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's criminal files. Trump has had his own share of criticism for Biden, both recent and in the past. In April, Trump blamed his predecessor for a poor economy, saying "This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's," adding that "we have to get rid of the Biden 'Overhang.'' He's also ordered an investigation of Biden's alleged "cognitive decline." At a 2022 rally in Arizona, Trump said "Biden has utterly humiliated our nation." In the rare post-presidency public appearance Thursday evening, Biden said that "the hard truth" of the Trump administration was that it aimed "to erase fairness, equality, to erase justice itself." Biden's remarks echoed his first post-presidency speech in April, when he accused Trump of "taking a hatchet" to the Social Security Administration.
