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  • Ford and Honda issue recalls for thousands of vehicles

    Ford and Honda issue recalls for thousands of vehicles

    Ford is recalling more than 250,000 vehicles that were incorrectly repaired under a previous recall meant to fix a problem that caused the engine to stall while driving.

    The recall includes 255,404 Ford Focus automobiles, model years 2012-2018. Ford said the canister purge valve may malfunction, causing the engine to stall unexpectedly while driving, increasing the risk of crash and injury.

    To fix the problem, dealers will provide a powertrain software update free of charge.

    Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed July 6. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 866-436-7332.

    Ford’s number for this recall is 26S40. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s number for this recall is 26V369. The original NHTSA recall number for this issue is 18V735.

    Vehicle identification numbers involved in this recall will become searchable on NHTSA.gov on July 6.

    Earlier this week Honda announced a recall of more than 800,000 vehicles because rear suspension components may fail and cause drivers to lose control, increasing the chances of a crash or injury.

    American Honda Motor Co. said the recall covers certain 2016-2022 Honda Pilot, 2017-2023 Ridgeline, 2019-2023 Passport, and 2014-2020 Acura MDX vehicles. The recall includes 880,514 vehicles that were sold in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

    The problem centers around the rear subframe, which can corrode at suspension mounting points and cause the rear suspension to fail. Honda estimates that just 1% of the vehicles listed have the defect.

    Honda has had no warranty claims and no reports of an injury or death related to the problem.

    As a remedy, Honda and Acura dealers will inspect the rear subframe and install a reinforcement kit if necessary, or repair or replace the rear subframe components at no cost to vehicle owners.

    Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed July 7.

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s campaign number for the recall is 26V367000. Honda’s numbers for this recall are AOU and AOT. Vehicle Identification Numbers applicable to this recall will be searchable on NHTSA.gov beginning June 10.

    Owners may contact Honda’s customer service at 888-234-2138.

  • Solar power hits new milestones in the U.S. even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy

    Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power.

    Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.

    “For years solar power has risen in the U.S. electricity mix,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and data analyst at Ember. ”At the same time, coal power has lost its status, first as the largest source in the U.S. mix, and then gradually over the years has fallen even further.”

    Solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in the U.S. in May, behind natural gas and nuclear, Fulghum said. Coal generation hit an all-time monthly low in April and rebounded only modestly in May, allowing increasing solar generation to overtake coal, he added.

    Electricity is produced by converting sources of energy — fossil fuels, renewable resources and nuclear — into electrical power. Burning coal, oil, and natural gas for electricity emits carbon dioxide, trapping heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet. By contrast, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear are carbon-free.

    After about two decades of essentially flat electricity consumption in the U.S., electricity demand is increasing to power artificial intelligence, grow domestic manufacturing, and electrify transportation and heating. Fulghum said he expects to see more months when solar exceeds coal generation, before overtaking it on an annual basis in a few years.

    These milestones signify that solar “has staying power” at a time when there’s less support for renewable energy at the federal level, he added.

    Wind and solar combined have overtaken coal in the past, and wind power alone has outpaced coal during spring months when wind speeds pick up. Ember gets its hourly and monthly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    Globally, electricity generation from renewables is growing rapidly. Renewables will become the largest global energy source, used for almost 45% of electricity generation by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

    Trump helps the struggling U.S. coal industry while curtailing solar and wind

    Last week, Trump, a Republican, announced a plan to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry by spending nearly $700 million to support coal-fired power plants and coal exports. Trump said at a White House event that “coal’s a great business” and that “in terms of power, there’s really nothing like it.”

    Martin Pochtaruk, CEO and founder of Canadian-based solar panel manufacturer Heliene, said Trump can say that coal is coming back but investors will invest their money in whatever brings the best return. And for power generation that is solar, making it the fastest-growing fuel, he added.

    A White House spokesperson defended the Trump administration’s overall energy policies, saying they were geared toward strengthening the country’s security.

    “The President has reversed the Left’s devastating policies, saved the American coal industry, prevented the retirement of more than 17 gigawatts of power, and saved lives during heightened demand periods,” Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

    While Trump is trying to reverse the coal industry’s decline, solar has been the top source for new power for five years, SEIA said. SEIA and Wood Mackenzie said solar and battery storage were practically the only energy resources being built in the first quarter, making up 91% of all new generating capacity.

    The Trump administration has canceled solar and wind projects, implemented policies that slowed clean energy permitting and development, and terminated $7 billion in funding intended for affordable solar energy projects across the U.S.

    “As power demand skyrockets, political and regulatory attacks are slowing down the exact resources we rely on,” Darren Van’t Hof, interim president and CEO of SEIA, said in a statement. “Impeding the only sector that is actively building new power is a reckless gamble that will only drive electricity bills higher.”

    Several groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency over canceling the Solar for All program. A district court dismissed the case last week citing lack of jurisdiction. The plaintiffs have another filing pending in the Court of Federal Claims.

    In a ruling Saturday, a federal judge struck down guidance from the Internal Revenue Service restricting tax credits for wind and solar projects.

    Trump has blamed renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power for skyrocketing energy costs. But energy analysts say recent price hikes are based on growing demand, aging infrastructure, and increasingly extreme weather events that are exacerbated by climate change. Most recently, the war in Iran that Trump launched has also led to a spike in energy costs.

    Blaming clean energy is “nonsensical,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman. The California Democrat said that “not even lighting $700 million of taxpayer money on fire” can save the dying coal industry.

    “The rest of the world will move ahead toward a clean energy future with countries other than the United States leading the charge, unfortunately,” he said Wednesday. “Trump will fail in this agenda. But, he will do enormous damage to our global leadership on clean energy and to the cost of living for struggling Americans.”

    Top states for solar voted for Trump

    States won by Trump in the 2024 election accounted for 74% of all solar capacity installed in the first quarter of 2026, with Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Arizona, and Mississippi ranking among the top 10 states for new solar additions, SEIA said. The U.S. now exceeds a total of 6 million installations nationwide across all solar sectors, which includes large-scale solar arrays, commercial, community solar, and residential or rooftop solar.

    Johanna Neumann, at the Environment America Research and Policy Center, said it’s “good news for our health and our planet that solar continues to grow,” and also, not surprising.

    “Today we can harness solar more affordably than any other energy source. It’s scalable. And it’s also our most abundant renewable energy source,” said Neumann, senior director of the center’s campaign for 100% renewable energy. “So I think it’s hard to keep the lid on a good idea, especially if the economics are tilting in your favor as well, which they are in the case of solar.”

    Environment America’s renewable energy dashboard shows that 32 U.S. states generated at least 10% of their retail electricity sales from solar, wind and geothermal energy last year, compared to 18 states in 2016. Clean energy in the South is booming, particularly in Florida, Arkansas, and Mississippi, Neumann said.

    “I think there is a misconception in the United States that clean energy is something for the coasts and liberal cities,” she said. “The true story of renewable energy is a 50-state story.”

  • Trump’s name poised to be removed from Kennedy Center after court denies last-minute move to keep it

    WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center was running out of options Friday evening to keep President Donald Trump’s name on the facade of the iconic performing arts venue.

    A judge earlier in the afternoon rejected a request to pause a court-ordered deadline of Friday to remove references to Trump from the building and other aspects of the Kennedy Center’s operations. The institution appealed that ruling, an effort that was also rebuffed Friday evening.

    Scaffolding was erected earlier in the day around a section of the building that includes Trump’s name, though there was no effort to remove it by 7 p.m. Eastern Time. Storms with lightning were dancing around Washington, adding to the challenge for workers.

    After ignoring the Kennedy Center for much of his first term, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his return to office. Just a month into his second term, he ousted the center’s previous leadership and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. Trump’s name was quickly added to the building.

    In his ruling that only Congress could make changes to the Kennedy Center’s name, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations that had been planned to start in July and last for two years.

    The Kennedy Center’s leadership argued in its appeal Friday that the renovation was badly needed and accused the lower court, in terms that seemed similar to Trump’s speech patterns, of interfering in the effort.

    “The District Court is not allowing us to close in order to properly fix up and repair the Building, including potentially life threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted, and in serious danger of falling onto people below,” according to the appeal. “Indeed, total collapse!”

    Even as the Kennedy Center has fought efforts to remove Trump’s name from the building, it has taken steps to comply with Cooper’s initial ruling.

    A June 4 memo to staff from the Kennedy Center’s Office of General Counsel said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” or “Kennedy Center.”

    The Kennedy Center’s website has dropped Trump’s name. And an earlier email sent to members offering ticket packages for the June 28 Mark Twain Award for American Humor ceremony came from the Kennedy Center without including Trump’s name.

  • Judge rules Trump can stage UFC fights on the White House’s South Lawn this weekend

    WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Friday that the White House is allowed to stage a UFC show this weekend in an elaborate ring already built on the South Lawn to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary — on President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

    U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected a legal advocacy group’s request to block organizers from using the White House lawn as the venue for Sunday’s planned UFC mixed martial arts event.

    Mehta concluded that the plaintiffs likely don’t have legal standing to challenge the event and have failed to prove that they would suffer irreparable harm by the event going forward as planned. The judge also cited the plaintiffs’ “unreasonable delay” in suing to challenge an event that’s been in the works for months.

    “In the context of an emergency application — and coupled with the fact that the UFC fight date was long ago known — it is fair to say Plaintiffs unreasonably delayed bringing suit, undercutting their claims of irreparable harm,” Mehta wrote.

    Attorneys from the nonprofit Public Integrity Project sued to challenge Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 event on behalf of an activist and a Vietnam War veteran. The two plaintiffs also asked the court to block organizers from building anything for the event on White House grounds, including a 92-foot-tall, 600-ton steel structure called the Claw.

    The plaintiffs’ alleged “aesthetic harms,” the judge noted, are temporary since the Claw will be disassembled starting Monday morning and staging equipment at the Lincoln Memorial must be removed before then. “The President’s musings about permanency of the Claw does not move the dial in the face of a White House official’s clear representation,” the judge wrote.

    The White House called the lawsuit a baseless attempt to prevent Trump from hosting an event that’s no different from many others routinely hosted at public forums in the nation’s capital.

    Trump’s administration can’t issue permits for sporting events on the South Lawn or at the Lincoln Memorial, where UFC fighters planned to hold a news conference in front of fans on Friday, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys. They noted that the event is a privately organized, for-profit business venture, with VIP packages costing millions of dollars.

    “The President’s administration is granting the UFC an extraordinary business opportunity it may not lawfully grant, and in exchange the UFC is throwing an event at which its leadership, fighters, advertisers, and various celebrities will all pay tribute to the President on his birthday,” plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.

    Public Integrity Project attorney Brendan Ballou said the plaintiffs were disappointed in the judge’s decision but respect it and intend to “keep bringing cases to raise the cost of corruption in America.”

    “This isn’t a case about a sporting event, it’s about corruption, as a handful of people and companies stand to profit from our public monuments,” Ballou said in a statement.

    The National Park Service and the Interior Department are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

    In 2019, during his first term in office, Trump became the first sitting president to attend a UFC show. Trump, a Republican, is a friend of UFC president and CEO Dana White.

    Mehta was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Mehta has presided over other Trump-related cases, including civil litigation accusing Trump of inciting a mob of his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, a Democrat.

  • Lights! Camera! Cage match! The White House lawn’s Octagon is ready for Trump’s 80th birthday bash

    WASHINGTON — It looks from afar more UFO than UFC.

    Maybe it’s the kind of contraption that has carried space aliens to the White House to force a meeting with America’s leader.

    But come closer and you’ll see the contours of the eight-sided cage, 30 feet in diameter and shaped, with careful precision, like the MMA league’s signature Octagon.

    That is, a STOP! sign flipped on its edge, with wire-mesh sides and padded corners fitted with different sponsors’ logos: Morgan & Morgan, Bud Light, Dodge Ram, Corona Extra, and Polymarket, which identifies itself as the world’s largest prediction market.

    Overhead looms the Claw, a four-sided mass that arcs more than 90 feet into the air and features lights, speakers, thick snakes of wiring, and four large screens so fans not seated right next to the Octagon can follow the cage fighting below.

    Think more of the four-sided, metal grabby thing that tries to grasp stuffed animals at a video arcade rather than what house cats have — hence the extraterrestrial vibes.

    And surrounding all that are risers filled with gray folding chairs forming a temporary arena expected to seat 4,000-plus people for the seven UFC fights being staged on Sunday to celebrate the 80th birthday of President Donald Trump and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing.

    “Quite attractive to a lot of people”

    For non-UFC fans, all of this might be disorienting under any circumstances. But the temporary arena is covering nearly the entirety of the White House’s South Lawn, where Marine One usually lands to ferry the president to out-of-town trips and gobs of kids scramble in the grass during the Easter Egg Roll every spring.

    More than $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have been poured into building the arena, according to a court filing from the National Park Service, which oversees the South Lawn and contested a lawsuit meant to block the event. Federal Judge Ahmet P. Mehta on Friday declined to block it, ruling it could go forward.

    The White House says the UFC is covering the costs, though the filing states that seven agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration — have “allocated significant resources and manpower.”

    Fighters, their entourages, and assorted support staffers are expected to take over the driveway and part of the West Wing when they’re not fighting. But they’ll enter the arena via curtained-off walkways with access to the Octagon.

    They, as well as ordinary attendees of Sunday’s spectacle, will have picturesque views of the White House’s Executive Residence and its storied Truman Balcony on one side and the Washington Monument towering in the distance on the other. All of it will be accentuated by swirling spotlights, and perhaps even sweat and blood pouring off the fighters pummeling each other.

    A packed pre-event schedule included a news conference at the Lincoln Memorial with UFC chief Dana White and the fighters on Friday night.

    The schedule also includes a ceremonial weigh-in for combatants on Saturday at the Ellipse, a park near the White House, where organizers expect 120,000-plus visitors to watch Sunday night’s proceedings on large screens after winning free tickets in a lottery.

    Stunt athlete Travis Pastrana is also set to do a potentially death-defying backflip on a dirt bike on the White House lawn as part of the preshow extravaganza.

    Trump has called the Octagon and its Claw “quite attractive to a lot of people.” He’s even suggested that maybe the temporary structure could become permanent, like the Eiffel Tower, which he notes was originally built as part of the 1889 World’s Fair but then was never taken down.

    Only the president knows how serious that suggestion really is.

    The fights will go on rain or shine — despite a lack of covering

    Work on the arena began May 20 and has continued for weeks. During a walk-through for reporters on Thursday, construction noises — particularly sanding and hammering — could be heard. Giant cranes were carrying materials around overhead, though that was for the $400 million ballroom that Trump is building nearby, not the UFC fight.

    The remaining grassy lawn around the arena, on the other sides of the White House, has been fitted with supplemental spotlights. But the grass that normally grows between the White House and the start of the risers for the arena is now gone, with nothing but dusty dirt that will need to be resodded when this is all over — unless the president really does decide to leave the arena up permanently.

    There’s also a large Freedom 250 logo standing between the White House and the arena. Nearby, crews removed the tables and yellow patio umbrellas from Trump’s refurbished Rose Garden and were power-washing that space, as well as the colonnade to the Oval Office, in preparation for the fights.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed a cooperation agreement with UFC that will see both institutions provide fight training and health and diet regimens, while promoting teamwork and leadership among youth around the world.

    “We are so polarized,” Rubio said. “There are only a handful of things that bring people together in one place at one time, united by their interest in one thing. We need more of those.”

    Later Thursday, crews began testing the sound system, unleashing a deep rumbling — and sometimes unsettling bass notes — throughout the West Wing. During a subsequent Oval Office event, the music from the lawn was loud enough that the 1970s hit “Boys Are Back in Town” rollicked in the background as Trump spoke.

    Sunday’s event starts at 8 p.m. ET. As darkness falls, crews will illuminate the Claw in red, white, and blue, and the mass of lights will offer projections that make it seem as though the entire structure has been enveloped in a twirling stars and stripes pattern.

    The weather forecast calls for hot and muggy conditions with thunderstorms possible. The underside of the Claw’s tower features an overhead cover that should keep the fighters reasonably dry should it rain — and Trump is also likely to watch from a protected, covered area.

    But everyone else would almost certainly get wet.

    White has vowed that even heavy lightning — when the Claw might make a conspicuous target for bolts — wouldn’t stop the show.

    “I don’t care if it snows,” White said.

  • EU agrees to launch membership talks with Ukraine next week even as war with Russia drags on

    BRUSSELS — European Union nations agreed on Friday to open membership talks with Ukraine next week, officially launching the process for the war-torn country to eventually join the world’s biggest trading bloc.

    At a meeting in Brussels, ambassadors from the 27 EU nations decided to officially open negotiations with Ukraine as well as with Moldova, which Russia has also tried to drag back into its orbit, on Monday in Luxembourg.

    Ukraine sees EU membership as an important “security guarantee” for a stable future once war with Russia ends.

    Its best guarantee would be NATO membership, but the Trump administration insists that cannot happen. Others oppose it joining while fighting continues. Russia is strongly against it, and has cited moves toward NATO membership as a reason for launching its full-scale invasion in 2022, though it has not objected to EU membership for Kyiv.

    Countries hoping to join the EU must complete negotiations in 35 policy areas, or chapters, ranging from agriculture to trade, a process which can take years.

    An intergovernmental conference will be held on Monday to open key chapters — grouped together as “clusters” — concerning the values and principles on which the bloc was founded.

    “This is a recognition of the determination, courage, and hard work shown by both countries in advancing reforms, even in the face of immense challenges,” EU Council President António Costa and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

    They described the move as “a strategic choice” that strengthens “peace, security, and prosperity across our continent.” It’s also a “signal that the EU’s offer of peace, stability, and opportunity is unmatchable,” they said.

    Ukraine officially applied for EU accession less than a week after Russia invaded in February 2022. The EU commission has praised the country for reforms it has been able to push through in wartime, although deep concerns about corruption and justice standards remain.

    Last month, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged his EU partners to consider offering “associate membership” to Ukraine and breathe new life into talks aimed at ending more than four years of war with Russia.

    Other countries — France and the Netherlands among them — have suggested workarounds to bring Ukraine into the fold more quickly but without the rights of full membership.

    It all comes as the EU weighs whether to try to launch its own negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with U.S.-mediated talks bogged down while America’s attention focuses on the Iran war.

    Under Merz’s proposals, Ukraine would take part in EU meetings, but without voting rights, and would also have nonvoting “associate members” of the bloc’s powerful executive branch, the European Commission, and the European Parliament.

    All 27 EU members must agree before each policy chapter can be opened, and then again for it to be closed. Hungary, notably, has blocked the opening of negotiations, but the arrival of a new government in Budapest has softened that stance.

  • U.S. slaps sanctions against Cuban oil and gas company as tensions rise

    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The U.S. government on Thursday announced sanctions against Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company in a move some experts say will only deepen the island’s crises and hit vulnerable Cubans the hardest.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that key assets of the company, known as Cupet, were “unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago.”

    He also accused Cuba’s government of weaponizing energy.

    “While the Cuban people have suffered fuel shortages and blackouts because of decades of under-investment in critical infrastructure, Cuba’s Communist leaders have diverted energy resources to line their own pockets,” Rubio said in a statement.

    He further noted, without providing evidence, that Cuban officials “resell countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control.”

    Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s foreign affairs minister, pushed back against Rubio’s comments in a post on X.

    “The U.S. Secretary of State, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vindictive sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, is now further tightening the economic and energy blockade against Cuba,” he wrote. “To justify this, he doesn’t resort to excuses prepared by his State Department, but rather to the usual vulgar lies, the most aggressive, ignorant, and rabid rhetoric among Cuba’s enemies.”

    Cuba’s government has previously said that sanctions punish all Cubans and are aimed at strangling the economy to destabilize both the government and its people.

    Cupet’s fuel sales to the public are almost nonexistent and are currently rationed.

    William LeoGrande, an expert on Cuba at the American University in the United States, said the latest U.S. measure seems like an effort to block any major oil shipments.

    “It appears that they’re all in on strangling the Cuban economy,” he said. “Their policy is a contradiction. They claim they don’t want to create a humanitarian crisis, although that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

    ‘Risk of triggering mass migration’

    Ricardo Herrero, a Cuban economist based in the U.S. and executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., said he was “genuinely vexed” by the move.

    “How are private importers supposed to store diesel and get it into vehicles without using CUPET facilities?,” he wrote on X. “This undermines what, until this morning, had been a humanitarian priority for the US. Either something much bigger is afoot, or we’ve entered the ‘indiscriminate cruelty’ phase of this policy.”

    It’s unclear whether Cupet has any assets in the U.S., although it’s unlikely, LeoGrande said.

    He said he could understand the logic of the measure to decentralize the government and strengthen and empower the private sector by enabling it to sell gasoline to state enterprises, or force those enterprises to move toward privatization so they could be oil recipients.

    “Now, the Cubans are not going to privatize Cupet in the hope that might work and that somehow the U.S. might allow oil to go through in that way,” LeoGrande said.

    He noted that most private businesses in Cuba are small and don’t have the infrastructure to land an oil tanker, unload the product and distribute it.

    “They’re running a huge risk of triggering mass migration,” he said of the U.S. government.

    Thursday’s announcement comes almost a week after the U.S. government sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other officials, as well as several institutions.

    Rubio said in a statement that all property or interests of Cupet located in the U.S. or in possession or control of U.S. people are blocked.

    “President Trump wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity,” Rubio wrote on X. “Until then, we will continue to target the Communist regime’s ability to leverage its energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and violently repress the Cuban people.”

    Cuba is already struggling under a decades-old embargo and a lack of petroleum as the U.S. keeps pushing for a change in its economic and political model.

    Power outages — already common given the economic and energetic crisis gripping the island for the past five years — have only intensified since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs in late January on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba.

    Both countries have acknowledged that they’ve held talks, but the scope of them is unknown.

    Meanwhile, Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba ever since the U.S. military invaded Venezuela and arrested former President Nicolás Maduro.

    Last Thursday, Trump said Cuba has “sort of collapsed” and said “we’re going to handle that as soon as we’ve finished” military operations in Iran.

  • Trump plans to nominate U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to be national intelligence director

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as director of national intelligence.

    Trump announced the nomination on social media amid pressure from Congress to name a permanent replacement for Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation last month. Trump faced intense pushback over his decision to name Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting director. The job oversees the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies.

    The resulting uproar led to a standoff in Congress after Democrats said they would refuse to renew foreign intelligence powers unless Trump pulled Pulte’s nomination and named a permanent nominee.

    “Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay,” Trump wrote. “I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible.”

    Speaking later Thursday in the Oval Office, Trump said he still plans to keep Pulte in the role “for a little while” after earlier saying he wants Pulte to downsize the office. He called Clayton an “incredible talent” and said, “Nobody has better credentials.”

    As the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Clayton oversees the most prestigious of the Justice Department’s prosecution offices, with a vast portfolio ranging from terrorism and espionage cases to security fraud and public corruption.

    He took over from interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned in February after refusing to carry out orders from the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams. The case was eventually dropped after prosecutors from Washington submitted a request to a judge.

    Republicans hope to move quickly on nomination

    The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to hold a confirmation hearing for Clayton on Wednesday, according to a person who requested anonymity to discuss it ahead of an official notice.

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told reporters that the Senate hopes to receive Clayton’s nomination paperwork from the White House as soon as Thursday. “We will move quickly,” he said.

    Democrats are holding up the renewal of a key surveillance law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, in protest of Trump’s decision to temporarily tap Pulte. They say they won’t support an extension of the law, which expires at midnight Friday, until Trump withdraws Pulte’s appointment.

    Trump previously said Pulte would take over on June 19. It is unclear whether the Senate could move quickly enough to confirm Clayton before that date.

    “I don’t know what realistic is, but we’re gonna probe the limits of it,” Thune said.

    Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he has “known and respected” Clayton for decades and that if Trump had named him as the DNI nominee last week, “lots of pain might have been avoided.”

    “His intelligence, temperament and deep commitment to public service will make him a terrific DNI,” Himes said.

    Asked about Clayton’s nomination, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Pulte has to go.”

    “He cannot be in the DNI role,” Schumer said. “It’s too important.”

    Trump’s pick has led SDNY during a tumultuous period

    Clayton navigated his way through a 14-month tenure in the Southern District of New York without clashing with the federal judges in the busiest court in the nation, unlike his counterparts in upstate New York and New Jersey. After his interim term expired after 120 days, the judges of the Southern District appointed him as U.S. attorney.

    Clayton was sworn in April 2025 on the same day three prosecutors resigned, saying they felt pressured to admit wrongdoing or regret about prosecuting the case against Adams.

    Then, weeks later, the office had to withstand controversy over the Trump administration’s firing of one of its most respected and successful prosecutors, Maurene Comey. She claims she was fired because of Trump’s dislike of her father, former FBI Director James Comey.

    Under Clayton, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office facilitated the unsealing of thousands of pages of court records from the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell — documents that were made public as part of the Justice Department’s release of records related to the late sex offender and his longtime confidant.

    Clayton filed documents with the court explaining the process the government followed in releasing the materials.

    Clayton has also overseen the prosecution of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, on drug trafficking charges.

    Clayton has overseen cases involving national security threats

    Several recent terrorism cases brought by Clayton’s office touch on the global threats and influences that he’ll be navigating if confirmed as director of national intelligence.

    They include the May arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, an Iraqi and Iranian citizen accused of plotting 20 attacks in Europe and Canada and planning to attack a Manhattan synagogue and Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Ariz., in retaliation for the U.S. war on Iran.

    “There are foreign nations and terrorist organizations that see our success as a threat. A threat that they want eliminated,” Clayton said at a recent press briefing. “That is a stark truth.”

    “And don’t take my word for it,” he added. “Take their words and their actions. When your enemies tell you something, and when they act, you should know that they mean it.”

    The first Trump administration tried in June 2020 to install Clayton, then the chairman of the SEC, as U.S. attorney in Manhattan, but backed down and instead allowed Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss to serve in the post. The reversal came after then-U. S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman agreed to step down, following assurances that probes into Trump allies would not be disrupted and that Strauss could lead the office.

    At the time, the office was looking into dealings by Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as Trump’s personal attorney, and was also investigating the actions of a state-owned Turkish bank.

  • Former AP reporter Marlene Louise Johnson, who sued wire for discrimination, dies at age 89

    DETROIT — Former Associated Press reporter Marlene Louise Johnson, whose lawsuit against the wire service for race and gender discrimination led to affirmative action plans to spur hiring of female, Black, and Hispanic journalists, has died at 89.

    Ms. Johnson died May 9 in a Los Angeles-area care facility after being released from a hospital. She had been suffering from dementia, according to her daughter, Morenike Joela Evans.

    Born in Rochester, N.Y., Ms. Johnson earned an associate degree from the University of Buffalo and a bachelor’s degree at Wayne State University in Detroit. At the age of 75, she graduated from Howard University’s School of Divinity with a master’s degree in religious studies.

    While working in the Detroit office of the late-Rep. John Conyers in the early 1970s, Ms. Johnson met and befriended late civil rights icon Rosa Parks. In 1955, Parks helped spark a bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, ultimately leading to the desegregation of the city’s public buses. Parks died in 2005.

    Ms. Johnson was hired in 1972 as a general assignment reporter in the AP’s Detroit bureau. She covered stories on Black capitalism, court-ordered busing in Detroit’s public schools, tensions between the predominately white police department and the city’s Black residents, breast cancer screening, and women empowerment in business and culture.

    Minority hiring program brings Johnson to AP

    Ms. Johnson, who was Black, sued the global news organization for race and gender discrimination the year after she joined. She had been hired as part of a minority hiring program meant to bring in diverse talent to the AP — but after several months on the job, Ms. Johnson claimed she had received no training. She also believed she was being held to a performance standard different from her white, male counterparts.

    “What the suit was about originally was racism,” Ms. Johnson said in a 2013 interview with History Makers, a nonprofit research and educational institution that keeps an online oral history of both well-known and unsung Black Americans.

    “I was filing a copy, and there was nothing wrong with the copy,” Ms. Johnson said. “And so, like nine months in, the boss decides that he’s going to retire, and he’s going to dump me. And I said ‘oh, my gosh.’ And so, I was very upset.”

    Ms. Johnson said the Newspaper Guild helped her file the suit, which later became a class-action claim involving several other female minority journalists. Ms. Johnson then took a leave of absence in June 1975, according to AP records. Newspaper archives show her AP byline appearing on a Detroit-datelined story in 1975.

    “It was a scary thing for her to do,” Evans said about her mother’s discrimination claim against the AP. Much later, “she ended up getting like $700. I remember her being very upset over that — it kind of got taken away from her getting justice.”

    Class-action lawsuit nets bonuses, training for women and minorities

    The Newspaper Guild’s sex and race discrimination class-action lawsuit against the AP was settled about decade later in 1983 for more than $1 million. Ms. Johnson was not listed as one of the plaintiffs. Under the agreement, which involved the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the AP was required to establish affirmative action plans for female journalists, as well as Black and Hispanic journalists.

    “The suit turned from all Black and one white [plaintiff], to all white and one Black [plaintiff],” Ms. Johnson recalled in the interview with History Makers. “And the one Black — the one that went to the civil suit — they took my name off and put another woman’s name on it. A Black woman who I had never heard of before.”

    The seven women listed as plaintiffs shared $83,120, according to a 2019 NewsGuild International article. Part of the settlement agreement included provisions for training and bonuses for AP’s minority and female journalists.

    “I wasn’t in it for the money,” Ms. Johnson said, also noting that she couldn’t find jobs in the journalism industry for some time after filing her lawsuit.

    “We should be grateful that someone like Marlene, a Black woman in the 1970s at a major news organization who had the courage,” said veteran journalist Vincent McCraw, who also is Black and worked with Ms. Johnson later in her career at the Washington Times. “Whether she, willingly or not, knew there would be a sacrifice, she took it.”

    Johnson returned to journalism, ventured into public relations

    Ms. Johnson later moved to Washington where she worked for the Newspaper Guild, the National Urban League, and the National 4-H Council. She also worked with the White House Council On Aging and was part of the press office for President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration committee, according to her obituary.

    McCraw, a regional manager for Report for America, said he learned of Ms. Johnson’s death from Evans. He met Ms. Johnson in the early 1990s in Washington when she was working in communications and he was covering city government for the Washington Times.

    “We struck up a conversation and I learned she’d been in journalism,” McCraw said. “What I did not know then was the suit she had against AP. After a year or so she mentioned how she wanted to get back into journalism.”

    It was through McCraw that Ms. Johnson would come to work at the Washington Times in 1994, where she was an assistant features editor, he said. Ms. Johnson retired from there in 2004.

    She held memberships in the National Association of Black Journalists, the Capital Press Club, and the Public Relations Society of America.

    ‘Somebody you could count on’

    For about a decade prior to her death, Ms. Johnson lived in the Los Angeles area where she was cared for by Evans.

    “She loved being a reporter, a journalist,” her daughter said. “She was really an advocate for people and telling the truth.”

    In the interview with History Makers, Ms. Johnson said she would like to be remembered “as a friend, as somebody you could count on, as a good Christian woman, as a strong woman, as a loving person, as a good mom, as a wonderful grandmom.”

    Ms. Johnson also is survived by two grandchildren, a son-in-law, and two siblings.

  • FDA’s e-cigarette authorization: Fruity vapes not significantly better than tobacco ones

    WASHINGTON — Fruit-flavored e-cigarettes recently authorized by the Food and Drug Administration were not significantly better at helping smokers quit than tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, according to a new memo that’s likely to stir more questions about the agency’s decision.

    The FDA last month gave its first OK to fruit-flavored vapes — essentially endorsing them as a less-harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes. The decision came despite the agency’s longstanding position that such flavors appeal to children and must show extra health benefits to warrant approval for adults.

    Health groups and Washington lawmakers quickly condemned the decision and have called for an explanation.

    A six-page FDA memo released this week provides more details about the agency’s rationale. In it, FDA regulators appear to sidestep previous statements about the risks of sweet vaping flavors while acknowledging shortcomings in the data submitted by vape manufacturer Glas Inc.

    To meet federal standards, companies must show that their products benefit public health. In practice, that means demonstrating that their vapes help adult smokers switch or quit cigarettes, while not attracting underage use by teens.

    Smokers who tried Glas vapes were much more likely to completely switch from cigarettes over the course of a three-month study, according to the memo.

    But the data did not show “statistically significant differences” between adults using the company’s mango and blueberry flavors and those using a tobacco-flavored e-cigarette.

    That means the new vapes failed to meet the same bar as a handful of other flavored products previously sanctioned by the FDA, including menthol-flavored vapes from Juul and NJOY. Those companies showed that adults who used menthol were significantly more likely to cut down or quit cigarettes compared with those vaping tobacco flavors.

    Elsewhere, FDA regulators explained that the Glas flavored vapes “did not have to demonstrate added adult benefit,” because young people were unlikely to use them. Glas requires users to unlock each e-cigarette with an age-verifying cellphone app.

    The agency’s authorization also runs counter to recent FDA guidelines advising companies that fruit and dessert flavors would have to meet “a high evidentiary burden” for adult use, given their risks to children. Tobacco-flavored products are not popular with teens and generally face lower regulatory hurdles at the FDA.

    The FDA document is also unusual in its brevity.

    Previous FDA memos on new vaping products typically run dozens of pages. For example, last year’s document authorizing Juul’s menthol e-cigarettes was more than 90 pages and included detailed scientific data from research involving 50,000 people.

    The short memo on Glas does not include key details, such as how many smokers the firm studied.

    Previously, the FDA almost always posted such memos immediately after announcing an authorization. The document on Glas appeared on the agency’s website more than a month after regulators OK’d the products.

    The agency has faced questions from members of Congress about the decision. Last month, 10 Democratic senators sent a letter to the agency requesting more information about the authorization, calling it a “shortsighted and reckless decision.”

    The application from Glas, which also included menthol and tobacco-flavored vapes, followed a winding path to authorization. The small, Los Angeles-based company submitted a marketing request to the FDA in 2021.

    In February, FDA scientists authorized several of the flavors. But that decision was blocked by a senior official reporting to then-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, according to internal memos later released by the agency.

    The mango- and blueberry-flavored products were finally OK’d during Makary’s last full week leading the agency. He resigned the post after months of criticisms from industry stakeholders, including tobacco companies that have lobbied President Donald Trump’s Republican White House for looser regulations on vaping flavors.

    A spokesperson for the company could not immediately provide comment when reached Thursday morning.