Carter Johnston for The New York Times
At Least 24 Are Killed in Texas Flood, and 20 Girls From Summer Camp Are Missing
“Many of the dead and missing were girls from Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas. Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones.”
Follow live updates at New York Times
Tragedy in Texas
People meet at a reunification center after flash flooding in Ingram, Texas, yesterday. Photo: Eric Gay/AP
“At least 24 people have died and many are still missing after severe flash floods tore through central Texas yesterday.
Nearly a foot of rain fell just before dawn yesterday and sent floodwaters gushing out of the Guadalupe River, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha told reporters yesterday evening. The flood-prone region is dotted with summer camps that draw thousands of kids annually from across Texas, AP reports.
Authorities say 23 to 25 children are still missing from Camp Mystic, a private girls camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, Axios' Astrid Galván reports.
An unknown number of people from across the region are also missing, Kerr County said in an update last night.
A helicopter flies over the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, after a flash flood swept through the area yesterday. Photo: Eric Gay/AP
More than 230 people were rescued or evacuated, most by helicopter, throughout the day yesterday, officials said.
The massive search operation continued through the night and is still underway.
People survey damage along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, yesterday. Photo: Eric Gay/AP
Elinor Lester, 13, who was attending Camp Mystic, told AP she and her cabin mates had to be helicoptered to safety.
Lester was among the older girls housed on elevated ground known as Senior Hill. Cabins housing the younger campers, who can start attending at age 8, are situated along the riverbanks and were the first to flood, she said.” [Axios]
Trump’s Policy Bill
In Washington D.C. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
“President Trump signed his sweeping policy bill into law in a Fourth of July ceremony.
The American tax code now blends traditional supply-side economics with President Trump’s populist 2024 campaign promises. See how the legislation could affect you.” [New York Times]
Musk's primary threats pose danger for Republicans
BY CAROLINE VAKIL
© AP
“Elon Musk is threatening to primary Republicans who voted for President Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ posing a challenge for the president and his allies as they look to defy midterm headwinds. Musk vowed earlier this week that Republicans who supported Trump’s megabill ‘will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth’ as the Tesla CEO has reignited his feud with Trump in recent days. Republicans see the comments as unhelpful, with some saying if the threats come to fruition, it could risk diverting resources away in an election environment that historically hasn’t been kind to the president’s party in power.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
How Trump's megabill will impact health care
BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL
“The massive tax cut legislation passed by the House and Senate this week will dramatically upend health care in America. The legislation, signed Friday by President Trump, was never framed as a health bill, but it will mark the biggest changes to U.S. health policy since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Here's how Trump's big bill will change taxes
BY TOBIAS BURNS
“President Trump’s domestic agenda bill spans military and immigration measures, major cuts to national healthcare, and numerous industrial incentives — but the heart of the bill is still tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation scored the Senate version of the bill as cutting deficits by $500 billion over 10 years without the cost of the main tax cuts in the bill, which are extensions of cuts initially passed in 2017.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Trump says he wasn’t aware term used at rally viewed as antisemitic
BY STEFF DANIELLE THOMAS
“President Trump said he was unaware that the term ‘shylock’ is considered antisemitic, after using it during his Iowa speech Thursday to describe lenders that add too many conditions on their loans. Trump said he ‘never heard it that way’ and did not recognize that it was an offensive term for Jewish people. The word comes from a Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ in which a Jewish lender requires a debtor hand over a pound of flesh as interest.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
A firefighter battled the Madre Fire along Highway 166 in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., yesterday. Photo: Noah Berger/AP
“The Madre Fire has become California's largest wildfire of the year, covering more than 52,000 acres. Evacuation orders and warnings are in effect for communities in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.” Go deeper. [Axios]
1 big thing: Ramped-up deportation spectacle
Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“The MAGA movement is reveling in the creativity, severity and accelerating force of President Trump's historic immigration crackdown.
Why it matters: Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, deportations to war zones, denaturalization of immigrant citizens — are now being proudly embraced at the highest levels of the U.S. government, Axios' Tal Axelrod and Zachary Basu write.
It's an extraordinary shift from Trump's first term, when nationwide backlash and the appearance of cruelty forced the administration to abandon its family separation policy for unauthorized immigrants.
Six months into his second term — and with tens of billions of dollars in new funding soon flowing to ICE — Trump is only just beginning to scale up his mass deportation machine.
Driving the news: Trump on Tuesday toured a temporary ICE facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," where thousands of migrants will be detained in a remote, marshland environment teeming with predators.
MAGA influencers invited on the trip gleefully posted photos of the prison's cages and souvenir-style ‘merchandise,’ thrilling their followers and horrifying critics.
Pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer drew outrage after tweeting that ‘alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now’ — widely interpreted as a reference to the Hispanic population of the United States.
The big picture: Citing the millions of unauthorized immigrants who crossed the border under President Biden, Trump and his MAGA allies have framed the second-term crackdown as a long-overdue purge.
The result is an increasingly draconian set of enforcement measures designed to deter, expel and make examples out of unauthorized immigrants.
Some newer members of the MAGA coalition, such as podcaster Joe Rogan, have expressed deep discomfort with the targeting of non-criminal undocumented immigrants.
Zoom in: Trump's deportation efforts exploded into a full-blown spectacle in March, when the U.S. flew hundreds of alleged gang members to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The operation was captured in glitzy promotional footage, distributed on official White House social media, that showed shaved and shackled migrants being marched off planes and buses at gunpoint.
Zoom out: Trump's immigration toolkit has expanded since March, as his aides push for a dramatically higher pace of arrests and deportations.
Trump federalized the National Guard in California and deployed troops in Los Angeles to protect federal ICE agents, giving the military a rare and highly contentious role in immigration raids.
The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to deport undocumented immigrants to non-origin countries — including the war-torn nations of South Sudan and Libya.
Hundreds of migrants are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This week, Trump claimed that ‘conceptual work’ is underway to reopen Alcatraz — the decrepit former island prison in San Francisco, now a tourist site.
On Thursday, ICE announced it had arrested and was preparing to deport Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. — accusing him of cartel ties just days after he headlined an arena against influencer Jake Paul.
What to watch: Denaturalization of U.S. citizens — once a legal backwater — is gaining traction as Trump and his MAGA allies push the envelope on nativist rhetoric.
The Justice Department has begun prioritizing stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when they're charged with crimes and ‘illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process.’
But some MAGA influencers are pushing to weaponize denaturalization more broadly — not just as a legal remedy for fraud, but as a tool to punish ideological opponents.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) has called for the Justice Department to investigate the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
Trump has echoed false claims about Mamdani being in the country ‘illegally,’ and threatened to arrest the democratic socialist if he impedes federal immigration operations in New York.
The bottom line: MAGA is leveraging a precedent-busting president to set a new standard for immigration enforcement — one that could define Republican policy for years to come.” [Axios]
INTERNATIONAL
Hamas responds to Gaza ceasefire proposal
“'A positive spirit': Hamas said it had responded to a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire proposal and was prepared to enter into talks on implementing the deal, which envisages a release of hostages and negotiations on ending the conflict. Trump touted a ‘final proposal’ for a 60-day ceasefire in the nearly 21-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.” [Reuters]
“On the West Bank: Thirty Palestinian families left their home in a remote area of the Israeli-occupied West Bank saying they were forced out after years of harassment and violence by Israeli settlers. The families are members of the Bedouin Mleihat tribe. Meanwhile, a five-meter-high metal fence slices across the eastern edge of Sinjil. There is only a single route in and out of the town, watched over by Israeli soldiers at guard posts.” [Reuters]
HISTORY
CIA agent monitored Oswald before JFK assassination
Lee Harvey Oswald distributes "Hands Off Cuba" flyers in New Orleans. This photograph was used in the Kennedy assassination investigation. Photo: Corbis via Getty Images/National Archives
“For the first time since President Kennedy's assassination nearly 62 years ago, the CIA has tacitly admitted that an agent specializing in psychological warfare ran an operation that came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the killing in Dallas, Axios' Marc Caputo reports.
Why it matters: The disclosure Thursday — nestled in a batch of 40 documents and concerning agent George Joannides — indicates the CIA lied for decades about his role in the Kennedy case before and after the assassination, according to experts on JFK's slaying.
The linchpin document: A Jan. 17, 1963, CIA memo showing Joannides was directed to have an alias and fake driver's license bearing the name "Howard Gebler."
Until Thursday, the agency had denied that Joannides was known as "Howard," the case agent name for the CIA contact who worked with activists from an anti-communist group opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro called the Cuban Student Directorate.
For decades, the agency also falsely said it had nothing to do with the student group, which was instrumental in having Oswald's pro-Castro stances published soon after the shooting.
‘The cover story for Joannides is officially dead,’ said Jefferson Morley, an author and expert on the assassination. ‘This is a big deal. The CIA is changing its tune on Lee Harvey Oswald.’
The information comes to light as part of President Trump's order that the government meet its obligations to disclose all documents under the JFK Records Act of 1992.
Zoom in: Joannides was the deputy chief of the CIA's Miami branch, overseeing ‘all aspects of political action and psychological warfare.’ That included covertly funding and directing the Cuban student group, commonly referred to as DRE for its Spanish-language initials.
On Aug. 9, 1963, more than three months before the Nov. 22nd assassination, four DRE operatives got into a scuffle with Oswald in New Orleans when he was passing out pro-Castro "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" pamphlets.
Zoom out: The new documents don't shed any additional light on Kennedy's shooting or settle the controversy over whether Oswald acted alone. Nor is there any evidence showing why the CIA covered up Joannides' ties to DRE.
All the records disclosed so far show how the CIA lied about financing or being involved with DRE.” [Axios]
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
Film and TV
Uma Thurman, left, with Charlize Theron. Thea Traff for The New York Times
“Uma Thurman returns to action movies with “The Old Guard 2,” which pits her against Charlize Theron. The two of them spoke with The Times about women in action.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” is in theaters this weekend. Listen to its director, Gareth Edwards, narrate a T. rex escape scene from the film. (You can also read our review here.)
The teaser for “The Odyssey,” Christopher Nolan’s next film, is playing in theaters before “Jurassic World Rebirth.” Here’s what it reveals.
In “Heads of State,” Idris Elba plays the British prime minister and John Cena plays the U.S. president, both of whom fend off assassination attempts. Our reviewer calls it loud and harmless japery.
Music
Liam Gallagher, left, and Noel Gallagher from the band Oasis. Scott a Garfitt/Invision, via Associated Press
Oasis is back. In the 16 years they were away, the Gallagher brothers kept their names in the news by mastering the art of the troll.
Sean Combs was acquitted of the most serious charges against him. His successful defense hinged on the argument that he might be abusive, but he wasn’t a racketeer.
Ozzy Osbourne appears in his last-ever concert today. Five musicians, including Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe, reflected on Osbourne’s career.
Fashion
A skinny little mustache is the facial hair style of the moment, GQ reports.
Some athletes’ wives and girlfriends are more famous than the players themselves. Fashion brands have noticed.
Marc Jacobs showed off his latest collection at the New York Public Library. The looks were dreamy and wide open to interpretation, our Styles editor wrote.
More Culture
Some say there is no longer a place for the straight white male novelist. The Times’s Marc Tracy asks: Should we care?
Some people are injecting themselves with Botox. The Cut is encouraging them to stop.” [New York Times]
Joey Chestnut reclaims title in Famous hot dog eating contest, wins 17th Mustard Belt
“Famed competitive eater Joey “Jaws” Chestnut reclaimed his title Friday at the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest after skipping last year’s gastronomic battle in New York for the coveted Mustard Belt. Chestnut, 41, consumed 70 1/2 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes.” Read More at AP News