The Full Belmonte, 6/30/2025
Sniper found dead after killing 2 firefighters in ambush attack on Idaho
“Firefighters worked through the night to contain a fire in Idaho before investigators could conduct a more thorough search of the area where a suspect, who has not yet been identified by police, lit an early afternoon fire and then shot the first responders who came to put it out. Around 300 local, state and federal officers flocked to the area of Canfield Mountain, outside the city of Coeur d’Alene, and authorities found the shooter's body and a nearby firearm using cell phone location data, local officials said. Coeur d’Alene residents recounted their quiet neighborhood was swarmed with law enforcement as authorities responded to the deadly attack.” [USA Today]
Smoke rises on Sunday after multiple firefighters were attacked when responding to a fire in the Canfield Mountain area outside Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Young Kwak, REUTERS
Senators to begin morning vote on Trump's major tax, Medicaid, border bill
A view of the Capitol as the Senate considers Trump's sweeping spending and tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. June 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
“Republicans will try to thread the needle for tax cuts, Medicaid reforms and border security funding as they begin voting on President Donald Trump's signature "Big Beautiful Bill" with a narrow majority.
Vote-a-rama: Senators spent Sunday debating the 940-page bill before embarking on what is expected to be dozens of amendments. The whirlwind voting process is nicknamed a "vote-a-rama" — and could last hours.
•Trump wants Congress to send him the bill by July 4. If the Senate approves the bill, the House will begin voting on it July 2.
•"We'll find out": Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, expressed uncertainty over whether enough Republicans will support their version to send it back to the House. But there is enough GOP support to at least begin the hours-long debate and expected voting on dozens of amendments.
•What is a vote-a-rama? It'll be time-consuming political theater centering around scores of amendments aimed at tweaking key parts of Trump's signature piece of second-term legislation, which is stuffed with tax cuts, Medicaid reforms and border security funding.” [USA Today]
The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite
Trump bets on 'big, beautiful' Senate win
“President Trump is hours away from what he hopes will be Senate passage of the biggest legislative victory of his term, even as hurdles loom.
The final vote will be a nail-biter.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), targeted by Trump in his primary because of his dug-in opposition, criticized his party’s bill and Senate partisanship on Sunday before announcing he will not seek reelection next year.
The president, who backs competing Senate and House versions, has wooed and pressured GOP lawmakers for months to extend expiring 2017 tax cuts and increase defense and immigration spending this year as the playbook for 2026 midterm victories.
But some of the policies in the 940-page bill and its price tag worry some House and Senate conservatives. Democrats are united against it.
The marathon Senate process to consider amendments to the bill, known as vote-a-rama, begins at 9 a.m. and is expected to stretch well into the afternoon or evening. It's unclear when senators could hold a final vote.
If it clears the upper chamber, the legislation would then need to pass several procedural steps in the House before coming up for a vote. GOP leaders say a House vote could begin as early as Wednesday morning.
‘ONE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, is moving along nicely! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ Trump posted on Truth Social after 2 a.m. ET.
All eyes will be on a handful of GOP senators who can make or break the bill.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said Saturday he resolved his Medicaid worries and supports the Senate version of the legislation. Joined by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the last three holdouts — Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) — secured a commitment from Republican leaders to back a proposal from Scott to reduce the rate at which the federal government reimburses states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act for new enrollees, according to Johnson.
‘We just have their commitment that they’re going to do everything in their power to make sure this passes,’ Johnson said, according to The Washington Post.
But such a provision could threaten the support of GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who have their own concerns about Medicaid changes. Murkowski is under pressure from lawmakers in her state to reject the bill.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who asserts his party is on the wrong path with a package estimated to raise the debt by $4 trillion over a decade, has said he opposes the measure.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has a three-vote margin and is eager to keep his GOP colleagues in line after Saturday’s arm-twistingly narrow 51-49 vote to proceed.
Trump wants to sign a measure into law by Friday, July 4.
Republicans in both chambers have battled for months over their promises to constituents and misgivings about slashing Medicaid.
Tillis warned his Senate colleagues that cutting Medicaid will hurt red states and come back to bite GOP candidates in next year’s midterms, wielding detailed data and charts to make this case. The approximately $800 billion in federal spending cuts to Medicaid are intended to help offset the price of extending tax cuts, which are estimated to add trillions of dollars to the federal debt.
North Carolina newsline: Here’s who is and isn’t running for Tillis’s seat as of Sunday.
MAGIC ASTERISKS: GOP senators have charged forward with a controversial accounting measure for the tax portion of the bill, as Democrats accuse them of fanciful budget math.
The GOP favors an accounting move called ‘current policy’ to assert that the expensive 2017 tax cuts, now in effect, should not count as additional spending when extended, even though those tax breaks are set to expire at the end of the year.
Republicans want Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to determine the baseline, effectively circumventing the Senate parliamentarian, who determines what can proceed through the special budgetary rules Republicans are using to avoid a Democratic filibuster.
The Hill: Senate Republicans declined Sunday to meet with the parliamentarian on whether the Trump tax cuts add to annual deficits.
Senate Republicans maintain that Democrats have done the same in the past while in the majority, while Democrats argue Republicans are using the accounting move in a way never before used.
‘The only way for Republicans to pass this horribly destructive bill, which is based on budget math as fake as Donald Trump’s tan, was to go nuclear and hide it behind a bunch of procedural jargon,’ Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement late Sunday.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a former Budget Committee chair, also blasted her GOP colleagues during a weekend floor speech, arguing ‘current policy’ math is a gambit to mask the costs of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, which add trillions of dollars to projected deficits.
The Hill: CBO says tax piece of GOP megabill could violate Senate Byrd Rule
The Associated Press: Republican Senate tax bill would add $3.3 trillion to the US debt load, CBO says
From the sidelines, former Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk, who broke with Trump in the spring, blasted Senate Republicans for slashing alternative energy incentives from the Senate measure as it heads to a final vote.
The billionaire Tesla CEO said the Senate’s approach ‘will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!’ He called it ‘utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.’
Meanwhile, GOP senators reached a Sunday agreement to change a provision in the Senate measure that originally would have barred for 10 years state legislation over artificial intelligence (AI).” [The Hill]
“As the bill grinds its way through the Senate, incentives are growing for foreign investors to diversify out of US Treasuries losing sheen from prospects of deficit spending and inflation-boosting tariffs. A nonpartisan forecaster said the bill would add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over a decade.” [Reuters]
“For the first time ever, the Trump administration has created a searchable national citizenship data system. The system is designed to assist state and local election officials in verifying that only citizens are voting. This is being done through the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, utilizing data from the Social Security Administration and immigration databases. Some officials have expressed concerns about what else this information could be used for.” [NPR]
Immigration raids leave crops unharvested, California farms at risk
A Guatemalan immigrant works on a crop field at a farm in Kern County, California, U.S., June 19, 2025. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
“Lisa Tate is a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County, California, an area that produces billions of dollars' worth of fruit and vegetables each year, much of it hand-picked by immigrants in the US illegally.
Tate knows the farms around her well. And she says she can see with her own eyes how raids carried out by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the area's fields earlier this month, part of President Trump's migration crackdown, have frightened off workers.”
Read more at Reuters
ICE Rolls Out Facial Recognition Tools to Officers’ Phones
BY LILY HAY NEWMAN, ANDY GREENBERG, AND DELL CAMERON | 3-MINUTE READ - [Wired]
Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations
“A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirements, experts say.”
Read story at ProPublica
A school will shut down after Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan pulled funding.
“Back in 2016: The Facebook founder and his wife opened a school for disadvantaged children in California. But, in April, Chan told staff its two locations would close.
The impact: About 400 kids will lose their school, which offers free tuition and other benefits.
Zooming out: Zuckerberg has pivoted during Trump’s second term — here’s how.”
Read this story at Washington Post
INTERNATIONAL
Iran 'insists' on uranium enrichment in wake of strikes
Takht-Ravanchi also hit out at some European leaders for what he said was a "ridiculous" endorsement of the strikes by Israel and the US. Credit: BBC
“The US must rule out further strikes on Iran if it wants to resume talks over Tehran's nuclear program, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanch has told the BBC. Talks came to a halt earlier this month when Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites and military infrastructure, with the US also carrying out strikes, and Iran responded with missiles. Takht-Ravanchi denied Iran was developing a nuclear bomb, but said his country would ‘insist’ on being able to enrich uranium for what he claimed are peaceful purposes. US President Donald Trump has said he would ‘absolutely’ consider bombing Iran again if it was enriching uranium to concerning levels.”
Canadian Prime Minister Carney says trade talks with US resume after Canada rescinds tech tax
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said late Sunday trade talks with U.S. have resumed after Canada rescinded its plan to tax U.S. technology firms. The Canadian government said ‘in anticipation’ of a trade deal ‘Canada would rescind’ the Digital Serves Tax. The tax was set to go into effect Monday. Read more.
Why this matters:
U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that he was suspending trade talks with Canada over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called ‘a direct and blatant attack on our country.’
The digital services tax was due to hit companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. It would have applied retroactively, leaving U.S. companies with $2 billion U.S. due at the end of the month.” [AP News]
World Bank warns that 39 fragile states are falling further behind as conflicts grow, get deadlier
“The world’s most desperate countries are falling further and further behind, their plight worsened by conflicts that are growing deadlier and more frequent.That is the sobering conclusion of the World Bank’s first comprehensive study of how 39 countries contending with ‘fragile and conflict-affected situations’ have fared since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020. Read more.
Why this matters:
Of the 39 countries, 21 are involved in active conflicts, including Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia and Gaza. More than 420 million people in the fragile economies are living on less than $3 a day — the bank’s definition of extreme poverty.
Increasing conflicts have made things worse. In the 2000s, the world saw an annual average of just over 6,000 conflicts — in which organized groups used armed force against other groups or against civilians and cause at least one death. Now the annual average exceeds 20,000.” [AP News]
An intercepted call captured Iranian officials downplaying the damage of U.S. strikes.
“The details: The officials can be heard remarking that this month’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, ordered by President Donald Trump, were less devastating than they expected.
What else to know: Iran nearly managed to assassinate a former top Trump official in 2022, a new book revealed. And Republicans are clashing over Israel — it’s a generational divide.”
Read this story at Washington Post
“The Dalai Lama will address a major three-day gathering of Buddhist religious figures this week ahead of his 90th birthday, as his followers wait for the Tibetan spiritual leader to share details about his succession in a move that could irk China. Here's everything you need to know about the Dalai Lama.” [Reuters]
“The US and Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear sites creates a conundrum for U.N. inspectors in Iran: how can you tell if enriched uranium stocks, some of them near weapons grade, were buried beneath the rubble or secretly hidden away?” [Reuters]
“Palestinians in northern Gaza reported one of the worst nights of Israeli bombardment in weeks after the military issued mass evacuation orders, while Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the Trump administration.” [Reuters]
“A Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilot died in a crash while repelling a Russian air attack that involved hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, authorities said, as Moscow intensifies night-time air barrages in the fourth year of war.” [Reuters]
CULTURE
Customers shop for 'Kolhapuri' sandals, an Indian ethnic footwear, at a store in New Delhi, India, June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
“Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furore among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy.”
Read more at Reuters
TECH
Artificial intelligence might be changing our brains, but it’s not clear how.
“Brain drain: Headlines often declare that using AI programs like ChatGPT makes us stupid and lazy. But research has been limited, and not entirely negative.
There are worrying signs: Recent studies linked frequent AI use to worse critical thinking abilities, brain engagement and memory.
In other tech news: Trump Mobile’s phone service actually exists — we tried it out.”
Read this story at Washington Post
SCIENCE
Lab-grown salmon is on sale for the first time in the U.S.
Wildtype’s sushi-grade, cell-cultivated salmon. It takes about two weeks to create a 220-gram, uniformly cut block of fish. (Business Wire/AP)
“What is it? Salmon made from cells cultivated in tanks in San Francisco. It was approved by the FDA last month, and was recently on the menu at a Haitian restaurant in Portland.
What’s the point? Advocates say lab-grown fish can help meet the growing demand for food with healthy protein, while also minimizing environmental and climate impacts.”
Read this story at Washington Post