Watch: Donald Trump says he will ‘take a look' at deporting Elon Musk after bill backlash
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday (1 July), the US president was asked whether he would kick Mr Musk out of the country and back to South Africa.
'I don't know,' he replied. 'We'll have to take a look.'
His comments come hours after Mr Musk threatened to bankroll primary challenges against Republican lawmakers who support the "Big, Beautiful Bill", which proposes tax breaks and sweeping cuts to healthcare and food programmes.
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UPenn to ban transgender athletes, feds say, ending civil rights case focused on swimmer Lia Thomas
The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from its women's sports teams to resolve a federal civil rights case that found the school violated the rights of female athletes. The U.S. Education Department announced the voluntary agreement Tuesday. The case focused on Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022, when she became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title. It's part of the Trump administration's broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports. Under the agreement, Penn agreed to restore all individual Division I swimming records and titles to female athletes who lost out to Thomas, the Education Department said. Penn also agreed to send a personalized apology letter to each of those swimmers. It wasn't immediately clear whether Thomas would be stripped of her awards and honors at Penn. The university must also announce that it 'will not allow males to compete in female athletic programs' and it must adopt 'biology-based' definitions of male and female, the department said. Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it a victory for women and girls. 'The Department commends UPenn for rectifying its past harms against women and girls, and we will continue to fight relentlessly to restore Title IX's proper application and enforce it to the fullest extent of the law,' McMahon said in a statement. The Education Department opened its investigation in February and concluded in April that Penn had violated Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding sex discrimination in education. Such findings have almost always been resolved through voluntary agreements. If Penn had fought the finding, the department could have moved to refer the case to the Justice Department or pursued a separate process to cut the school's federal funding. In February, the Education Department asked the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations, or NFSHSA, to restore titles, awards and records it says have been 'misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories.' The most obvious target at the college level was in women's swimming, where Thomas won the national title in the 500-yard freestyle in 2022. The NCAA has updated its record books when recruiting and other violations have stripped titles from certain schools, but the organization, like the NFSHSA, has not responded to the federal government's request. Determining which events had a transgender athlete participating years later would be challenging. ___ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
The Independent
11 minutes ago
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Interest rates would have been cut, if not for Trump's tariffs, Fed chair says
The Federal Reserve would have likely cut interest rates by now had it not been for President Donald Trump 's sweeping tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner, Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday. Amid a battle with the president, who has been pressuring the Fed to cut interest rates, Powell said they had to re-evaluate their plans for interest rates once inflation forecasts went up after April's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs. 'We went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs, and essentially, all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs,' Powell said while sitting on a panel at the European Central Bank forum. When asked if the Fed would have cut interest rates by now, had the tariffs not been implemented, Powell said, 'I think that's right.' Trump has lashed out at Powell for refusing to cut interest rates, calling him 'not a smart person,' and accusing him of making the government spend more money unnecessarily. He's repeatedly attacked Powell online for not following other countries in lowering short-term interest rates. He has even suggested he would 'terminate' Powell – something he cannot do. On Monday, Trump sent a handwritten letter to Powell, who he often calls 'too late,' claiming he 'cost the U.S.A. a fortune' by not cutting interest rates. 'You should lower the rate – by a lot! Hundreds of billions of dollars are being lost,' Trump wrote on a paper containing the global Central Bank rates. Lowering short-term interest rates can encourage people to borrow and spend more, which stimulates the economy. It also reduces the amount of interest the government must pay on debt. But it can also increase inflation. But Powell said the Fed was being 'prudent' by adopting a wait-and-see method when it comes to the impact of tariffs. The U.S. economy is currently stable with low unemployment rates and declining inflation. However, Powell said the impact of tariffs could come later this year. He reminded the panel that inflation is behaving the way the Fed initially expected. 'We haven't seen effects much, yet, from tariffs and we didn't expect to by now. We've always said the timing, amount, and persistence of inflation would be highly uncertain,' Powell said. He added, 'We expect to see, over the summer, higher readings, but we're prepared to learn that it can be higher or lower or later or sooner than we expected.' Powell did not indicate whether the Fed would cut interest rates in July, saying that they were making decisions based on how data changes. While Trump can hope for Powell to resign, he can remain Chairman of the Federal Reserve until 2026 when his term ends.
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Keir Starmer must now take the road to political recovery
After a series of open revolts by his backbenchers – the last so powerful that it overwhelmed his government's ability to withstand it – and having executed a variety of hand-brake turns, U-turns, and very nearly leaving the highway altogether, the prime minister finds himself at a fork in the road. Behind him is a milestone that reads '2 July 2024. The first Labour election victory since 2005.' Ahead of him, two routes. One, bearing left, is a dead end, as he must surely realise. He cannot carry on as he has in recent weeks, relegated to being a back-seat passenger with a succession of backbench rebels grabbing at the wheel. No prime minister can survive in such circumstances – as the recent history of the Conservative Party graphically reminds us. 'Chaos and confusion' was how Sir Keir Starmer derided it in opposition, as the Johnson, Truss and Sunak administrations gyrated around like broken shopping trolleys. Now, against all expectations, the prime minister has suffered some unfortunate traffic collisions of his own. Those who wish for the Labour government to succeed in taking difficult but necessary decisions in the national interest, as was always and apparently sincerely promised, are frankly dismayed that it should come to this. A critical friend has therefore to warn the prime minister of the parlous position he finds himself in, and so early in his time in office. The fiasco over the welfare bill acts as an exemplar of what has gone wrong – but which need not have done so. His government has now managed to push a greatly weakened version of its original welfare bill through the Commons, and with maximum pressure applied to the loyalty of his MPs. In many respects, it represents a defeat, if not a humiliation for Sir Keir. It should not have happened in this fashion, and he has not been well-served by his chancellor, it must be said. The aim of placing the social security system on a sustainable footing is well supported across the political spectrum. All agree there is a balance to be found between being fair to vulnerable people and to the taxpayers. There was an opportunity to create a better system, one that both kept the budget within realistic constraints, and which removed some of the present anomalies and flaws. Given time and attention, it might even have been a new Beveridge report, refounding the welfare state. It would – should – similarly command public confidence and cross-party consensus. Instead, we suffered a thinly camouflaged, Treasury-led exercise in finding £5bn in cuts because Rachel Reeves was in a hurry. She had, not for the first time, allowed herself insufficient room for manoeuvre on her own fiscal rules. Liz Kendall's reforming ambitions were left badly mauled as a result – but with them, Sir Keir's own authority and credibility. What's done is done, and now the prime minister needs to learn the lessons of recent events, and display the sort of grit and steely determination in steering his party that he did in the early years of his time as leader of the opposition. That is the road to political recovery he can take, and there is an extremely happy precedent – himself. After all, Sir Keir has done a restoration job before, and he should remind himself of that. Against all odds, as has been too easily forgotten, perhaps even by Sir Keir himself, he picked up the pieces after the Corbyn debacle of 2019, when no one else could or wanted to, and led his party to that famous triumph a year ago. When he was elected leader of the party, it was in the middle of the Covid lockdown, and no one much was interested in anything he wished to say. Labour looked to be out for a decade, or longer. Certainly, Sir Keir was greatly assisted by the antics of his Tory opponents, but there was also nothing preordained about the last general election. He and his team transformed a Conservative majority of 80 into a Labour overall majority of 174 – unprecedented in modern times. The position now is eminently recoverable. Unlike in opposition, Sir Keir can do things, and has the whole machinery of government at his disposal. He can learn the lessons of recent events. He and those around him need to rediscover their political instincts and their sure touch for public opinion. He needs to work harder on his 'messaging' – astonishingly, his government has not yet crafted a definitive 'narrative', something that can guide his ministers, reassure his party and persuade the voters to stay on board. Clearly, he needs to engage more with the parliamentary party, and ensure he has a team with sufficient political nous close to him in No 10 and around the cabinet table. He cannot afford to be blindsided again in the way he also was with the rise of Reform UK in the local elections, and the pensioners' winter fuel payment, the worst disaster of all. Conversely, Labour successes in the NHS, in investing for growth, rebuilding links with Europe, and in trade and foreign affairs, are there to be boasted about. He also needs a wordsmith who can help him avoid some of the gaffes he has needlessly made, notably that 'island of strangers' moment. He has to regain his authority over his party – and remind them who they owe their seats to, and the reality of the ultimate catastrophe of handing power to Nigel Farage. There is much more to be done. On schools, social care, social security, local services, housing, the cost of living and irregular migration, the public is impatient for that word we heard so often this time last year: 'change'. The good news is that Sir Keir still has time on his side – but he does need to keep his eye on the road, and, as it happens, the Treasury.
