All posts tagged: President Trump

Signs to Be Installed Outside Smithsonian Warning of Political Bias

Signs to Be Installed Outside Smithsonian Warning of Political Bias

President Donald Trump escalated his battle with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Friday, ordering signage outside the institution to flag what an executive order calls “inaccurate information” presented in its exhibits. The extraordinary directive comes amid intensifying Republican scrutiny of the Smithsonian branch, which was the subject of a recent 162-page report accusing its director, Anthea M. Hartig, of replacing “historical education” with “extreme political activism.” According to the order, the signage will tell visitors that the museum’s exhibits “should be renovated” to align with the report and direct them to locations where, in the administration’s view, American history is more accurately reflected. The administration did not specify which locations the signage would direct visitors to. Related Articles Trump’s order comes only days after Hartig faced two congressional hearings over alleged political bias in her museum’s curation and questions about her loyalty to the United States. Hartig, an explicit target of the White House report, rejected its central claims, defending the museum’s scholarship as “rigorous” and “fact-based” and saying it aims to tell …

‘Sanctuary people’ redefine what it means to protect immigrants in uncertain times

‘Sanctuary people’ redefine what it means to protect immigrants in uncertain times

(The Conversation) — Hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. are living in uncertain times. On June 25, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could proceed with a plan to end Temporary Protected Status – a federal program that allows people to stay in the United States when the government considers their own country unsafe – for around 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. Their work permits are scheduled to end July 24, leaving TPS holders at risk of deportation. This uncertainty is not new. In 2010, President Barack Obama granted TPS to Haitians living in the U.S. after an earthquake killed approximately 200,000 people in Haiti. The original period was 18 months, but TPS has been renewed multiple times because of humanitarian concerns, gang violence and political unrest. Haitian communities in Ohio, where I study immigration, have been particularly on edge since 2024, when, during the presidential campaign, Trump and JD Vance repeated false claims that Haitians living in Springfield were eating pets. Many of the city’s estimated 12,000 Haitian …

Orthodox Jewish groups oppose daylight saving bill, argue it would disrupt prayer

Orthodox Jewish groups oppose daylight saving bill, argue it would disrupt prayer

(RNS) — Making daylight saving time permanent moved a step closer to reality this week, when the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass a measure to eliminate the annual clock-changing ritual. But some Orthodox Jewish organizations are fighting to prevent the bill from becoming law. The measure, called the Sunshine Protection Act, passed in a 308-117 vote in the House on Tuesday (July 14). It now heads to the Senate, where its passage is uncertain. President Donald Trump has championed the effort, describing on his Truth Social account moving the clocks forward and back as a “ridiculous, twice yearly production.” If passed, the bill would give Americans an extra hour of sunshine in the evenings during the winter. But it would also push winter sunrises one hour later. That’s of concern to Orthodox Jews, who pray three times a day, beginning with the Shacharit morning prayer service, which by tradition cannot begin in the dark. “The bottom line is, if prayers have to start an hour later that will have a direct effect on …

How Islamophobia roiled a Texas election

How Islamophobia roiled a Texas election

FRISCO, Texas (RNS) — When Aneela Charania approached Frisco’s city council office on May 20, she said she immediately felt fear creep in. Charania, who is Muslim, had come to a public comment meeting about construction projects for a mosque and two Hindu temples. In the parking lot, Charania, who wears a hijab, texted a neighbor to ask if she could be escorted from her car to the room, as she feared being targeted. At the meeting, she says she sat through anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu and anti-immigrant comments as speakers debated whether her community belonged in the city at all.  “It really did take me back to after 9/11, to be honest,” said Charania, who moved to the Dallas suburb in February. “I’ve never experienced that level of hatred towards our community.”    The city council meeting was one of many that turned into a public referendum on Frisco’s diverse communities amid a mayoral runoff election pitting Mark Hill, a Republican business attorney, against fellow Republican Rod Vilhauer, a retired construction business owner. Vilhauer campaigned on …

Judge Gives Trump Deadline to Explain Tarp Over Kennedy Center

Judge Gives Trump Deadline to Explain Tarp Over Kennedy Center

A federal judge has given the Trump administration until July 31 to explain why a tarp still obscures the facade of the Kennedy Center, days after the president’s name was removed from the building by court order. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the administration must report “the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding” currently obscuring the institution’s full name, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Workers erected the scaffolding and tarp in the early hours of June 13 as they prepared to comply with a court order to remove Trump’s name from the building. The president added the words “The Donald J. Trump And” to the facade in December despite public outcry. A flurry of lawsuits seeking to block the move followed, citing federal law reserving to Congress the authority to alter national monuments. Related Articles Staff at the Kennedy Center began removing references to the president from the institution in early June, in accordance with a May 29 ruling by Judge Cooper. Effective immediately, his name was scrubbed …

Trump shares post claiming he is the ‘most powerful person that has ever walked this planet’

Trump shares post claiming he is the ‘most powerful person that has ever walked this planet’

President Trump has shared a post claiming that he is the “most powerful person that has EVER walked this planet”​ in his latest late night Truth Social spree. The post, attributed to “Presidential Historian Dave King,”​ comes after Trump signed a long-awaited but much-criticised deal to end the U.S.’s war with Iran on Wednesday. King compares Trump favorably to Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Attila the Hun, among other historical figures. “Historically, powerful people were characterised by brutal conquest and the fear they they instilled in the populations that came under their influence,” the author wrote. “The overwhelming difference between each of the above when compared with President Trump is their lack of global reach.” President Donald Trump shared a post which claims he is the ‘most powerful man’ to walk the Earth (AFP/Getty) King continued by claiming that none of those men possessed the same “manpower,” “technology,” and “global economic muscle” that Trump does as president. He also suggested that the current commander-in-chief was the first to use the U.S.’s status as a “global superpower” …

Commission of Fine Arts Approves Trump’s Controversial Triumphal Arch

Commission of Fine Arts Approves Trump’s Controversial Triumphal Arch

President Donald Trump announced the idea of building a triumphal arch, modeled on Paris’s Arc de Triomphe, at a holiday party last December. At the time, he said that planning and construction of the proposed arch should be domestic policy chief Vince Haley’s “primary thing.” The project’s architect, Nicolas Leo Charbonneau, a principal at the firm Harrison Design and leader of its “Sacred Architecture Studio,” told the New York Times that “the intent of the arch is a celebration in America of 250 years of greatness, freedom, and posterity, for which we can only thank the wisdom of our founders and God’s providence.” Related Articles The proposal was met with almost immediate pushback from the general public, as well as by military veterans (the 250-foot-tall arch would be cited on Memorial Circle in Arlington, Va., across the channel from Arlington National Cemetery) and historic preservationists. The deputy general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation testified that the Trust is “extremely concerned about the location, the height, the scale, and the design of the …

Trump Officials Cite Century-Old Report As Approval for DC Arch

Trump Officials Cite Century-Old Report As Approval for DC Arch

Trump does not need Congressional approval to build a proposed 250-foot arch on Washington, DC’s Memorial Circle, on Columbia Island, officials are arguing, because a century-old report once called for a pair of 166-foot columns there, reports the Washington Post. Memorial Circle is managed by the National Parks Service and is classified as protected land, meaning Congress must authorize the construction of monuments there. The Post’s sources say that the Trump administration has no plans to ask Congress’s permission. Instead, Trump officials are citing as justification for the arch a 1924 report by a federal commission that designed the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which initially was to include a pair of 166-foot columns topped by statues. These were never built.  Related Articles “Congress authorized the arch project when it approved the design set out in Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission’s report,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in a filing last month, the Post reports. Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, cited the report in a meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts in April, notes the paper, …

Trump’s new Air Force One gifted by Qatar government to arrive this summer after 0 million overhaul

Trump’s new Air Force One gifted by Qatar government to arrive this summer after $400 million overhaul

The Boeing 747 jet that Qatar gave to the U.S. last year for use as a new Air Force One will be ready for service by this summer, according to the Air Force. The jet, which will serve as a temporary presidential plane while the Air Force finishes long-term replacements, has “officially completed modification and flight testing” and is currently being painted, the Air Force said. “The aircraft is on schedule to roll out in a new red, white and blue livery this summer,” the Air Force wrote in a statement on Friday. The jet has inspired controversy since the government accepted it last May. Critics argued the gift posed national security risks, ran afoul of constitutional prohibitions on foreign gifts to the president, and was ethically dubious, given Qatar’s support for U.S. adversaries including the terror group Hamas. Retrofitting the ex-Qatari jet proved no less complicated, and the 747 recently underwent a reported $400 million overhaul that included installing top-secret communications gear and deconstructing parts of the interior to sweep for spy technology. The …

Voices: Donald Trump has no idea just how close he is bringing us to economic ruin

Voices: Donald Trump has no idea just how close he is bringing us to economic ruin

One of the many bold, indeed brave, remarks the King made during his address to both houses of the US Congress concerned the genius of the American constitution and Magna Carta, “not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances”. Yet despite this timely reminder, many legislators in the audience seem disinclined to exert their constitutional power as equal partners in the governance of the United States, nor even be stirred to uphold the laws they themselves enacted. So it is that the Republican majorities will not enforce the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires a president to terminate a military campaign at the end of the 60-day period unless Congress has declared war or authorised the use of military force. In the case of Iran, it has done neither. That resolution was passed during a previous period of imperial presidential overreach when lawmakers were attempting to wind down the war in Southeast Asia, and was actually a dilution of the power the constitution confers on …