President Donald Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.
Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate.
Also, the House leadership on Tuesday abruptly canceled votes and sent lawmakers home early for the holiday recess, Speaker Mike Johnson 's majority once again ground to a standstill by a Republican revolt over their own party's agenda. In this case, it's a standoff blocking the annual defense bill as Republicans push to include Trump's own priority, the SAVE America Act, a strict voter ID bill.
Here's the latest:
Navy helicopter makes emergency landing in Arabian Sea
A U.S. Navy helicopter made an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea, leaving one sailor missing, the Navy’s 5th Fleet said in a statement Wednesday.
According to the Navy, an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to USS George H.W. Bush went into the water at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, but the statement noted that “there is no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”
The statement went on to say that three of the helicopter’s four crew members were recovered, but one aircrewman was still missing.
The USS George H.W. Bush is one of two aircraft carriers deployed in the waters off Iran.
Ex-CIA Director John Brennan seeks court order requiring records from investigations be preserved
Former CIA Director John Brennan sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, demanding a court order that would require officials to preserve records from investigations that are targeting him.
Brennan said in the lawsuit that the records would be essential for him to defend himself against any eventual indictment and make the case that it was a vindictive prosecution by the Republican administration.
Vance says Doha talks are focused on Strait of Hormuz, not yet on nuclear issues
The vice president told reporters as he was leaving Virginia Beach on Wednesday that it was still “pretty early” in talks that U.S. negotiators were having with Iranian and Qatari officials.
Vance said they were discussing details related to commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and “really just ensuring that we continue to make the progress on that, and that’s what they’re focused on.”
“Obviously, we’re worried about the nuclear issue. We’re going to start talking about that,” he said.
Trump highlights chipmaker Micron for plans to invest $250 million in ‘Trump Accounts’
The president has promoted his eponymous investment accounts for children, highlighting a planned $250 million contribution from Micron, a computer memory chip maker.
“This incredible gesture, made by Micron’s fantastic CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, will make many children extremely happy some day in the not-too-distant future,” Trump posted on social media.
The accounts created by Trump’s 2025 tax cut extension include government seed stock index accounts for newborn children and allow private contributions to accounts for other children.
Micron will provide a $1,000-per-child matching benefit for employees and a one-time $250 deposit into accounts for children in the states where it operates: Idaho, New York, Virginia, California, Colorado, Minnesota and Texas
Micron estimates its commitments will benefit up to 1 million children.
Vance uses speech celebrating 250 years of ‘military excellence’ to slam Iran critics
The vice president visited Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia and began his speech joking that he reminded himself while taking the stage, “Don’t fall and bust your ass.”
The vice president noted former President Joe Biden having infamously tripped in the past, adding, “If I did it one time, it would be a major, major story.”
Vance also slammed critics who he said want the U.S. military “to just keep going and keep going” in Iran and “attack the president of the United States for using the leverage that you gave him to engage in negotiations.”
Vance said unnamed people had similarly suggested the U.S. do more during past wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such critics, he said, “Encouraged us to just go a little bit further and just drop a few more bombs.”
Trump gives condolences after death of musician who co-wrote ‘Y.M.C.A.’
Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People and helped write the disco group's classic hits, has died at age 74.
The song “Y.M.C.A.” is a favorite of Trump’s and is often played at his events.
“We will think of Victor every time ‘Y.M.C.A.’ is played, like today, and all throughout this July Fourth Birthday week,” Trump wrote on social media Wednesday. “My condolences to his wonderful family and group, Victor Willis will be sorely missed.”
Nealy 1,000 US military personnel are helping with Venezuela earthquake relief
The U.S. military now has about 900 military personnel supporting relief efforts in Venezuela following a pair of powerful back-to-back earthquakes that struck the country June 24, Steven McCloud, a U.S. Southern Command spokesperson said.
The statement comes as U.S. Southern Command continues to utilize a host of military aircraft and ships to move supplies and equipment into the country and U.S. Marines have joined search and rescue teams. The Marine Corps has also brought military transport trucks, highly mobile off-road vehicles and military ambulances to “further accelerate the movement of critical supplies and equipment,” a Southern Command statement said Wednesday.
McCloud added that there are also about 100 people from the State Department supporting aid and relief work.
The Venezuelan government has reported more than 1,400 deaths from the quakes over the weekend as well as thousands more that have been reported missing.
Trump administration moves to deport Cubans legally living in the US for alleged espionage
It comes accusations they were working as spies for Cuba’s socialist government.
The State Department said Tuesday that it had revoked the legal status of Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, his wife and son, all of whom are now in federal custody awaiting deportation. The department said Lloga Dominguez had worked for more than a decade in the U.S. as an agent of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People, which it said was an “influence and intelligence front group” for Cuba.
“Under the Trump Administration, America will never become home for Cuban Communist regime thugs who peddle propaganda, run foreign influence operations, or seek to wage revolution against American civilization,” the department said in a statement.
Trump visits Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota
The president is visiting North Dakota on Wednesday to see the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a massive facility exploring the life of America's 26th president. The 96,000-square-foot library is in the rugged, lonely landscape where the young Easterner built his conservation values while ranching and hunting in the 1880s.
Saturday's official opening coincides with July Fourth celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Trump is coming early to see the $450 million project, a boost for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota, while also bringing the nation's birthday festivities to a region synonymous with its westward expansion.
Retrofitted Qatari jet takes flight as Air Force One for Trump’s trip to North Dakota
President Trump is taking his maiden voyage on a new Air Force One — a retrofitted Boeing 747 worth $400 million gifted by Qatar that embeds his personality more deeply into the institution of the American presidency.
Gone is the trademark light blue hull that helped Air Force One blend into the sky. The refurbished jet is painted to Trump’s preferred color scheme of a navy belly and red and gold stripes. It has the luxury features the president believes a commander-in-chief’s entourage should have — plush carpets, lie-flat seats, wood paneling and a presidential seal on the seat belts, according to reported tours of the plane.
Trump told reporters he was proud of the luxurious plane. “You can do two things: You can low-key it, or you can show it,” he said.
Trump says Pulte can declassify what he wants as acting director of national intelligence
The president said federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte, who Trump named as the acting director of national intelligence, “can declassify whatever” he wants.
Pulte’s elevation to the position has been a source of tension because of his lack of national security credentials. But he’s been given free reign to force job cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“Bill is there just for a fairly short period of time, but while he’s there, I said, ‘You can declassify whatever you want,’” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One.
The president estimated that Pulte could hold the job for one or two months. There’s been a push inside Trump’s movement to release documents to back up Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, despite electoral results that show a clear loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be the permanent DNI.
The president said Clayton will have a Senate hearing on his nomination in two weeks, after having canceled Clayton’s initial hearing.
Trump claims stock market gains are behind his rising fortune
Financial disclosures show Trump made roughly $1.2 billion off his crypto currency ventures last year, but the president claimed he’s not directing his investments.
“We have funds that run my money,” Trump said. “I made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them. I never, I don’t even speak to them.”
Trump claimed his financial gains largely came from a rising stock market and that those profits help the country as a whole.
“We’re all profiting,” Trump said. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”
But not all Americans have access to the stock market.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that 38% of Americans don’t have exposure to the stock market.
Trump boards new Air Force One, saying Boeing’s answers to questions led him to approach Qatar
Trump beamed with pride about the new Air Force One before its initial voyage, telling reporters pictures of the Boeing 747 given to him by Qatar would win the Pulitzer Prize.
The plane was given to the U.S. by Qatar and Trump relayed how the exchange happened. He said he asked Boeing — which is set to deliver new planes for the presidential jet in 2028 — if there were any counties that had potential substitutes in the interim.
“I said, ‘Who has the best one?’ They said, ‘Qatar. There’s no, there’s never been a plane like it.’ Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollar,” Trump said.
The president said he went to Qatar and asked to use its plane for a period of time and the emir said he would instead give the plane to Trump. The president described the plane as “a gift from a country that has treated us very well.”
“You’re going to get a kick out of it,” Trump said to reporters about the plane. “There’s just nothing like it.”
How the Supreme Court became a pivotal force in Trump’s immigration agenda
President Trump's administration looked to the Supreme Court to greenlight its sweeping hard-line immigration agenda and, by and large, it got the backing it was looking for with one key exception — birthright citizenship.
After lower courts repeatedly ruled against the Trump administration, the nation's top court allowed it to terminate temporary protections for people fleeing war or strife. It gave immigration officers greater leeway in dealing with green card holders returning from abroad, and it allowed the government to limit the number of people who can apply for asylum.
In being asked to serve as an enabler of the Republican president’s contentious immigration crackdown, the Supreme Court showed deference to constitutional guardrails in the key case of birthright citizenship that would have redefined who can be an American. In ruling against the administration, the court upheld the idea that people who are born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, are Americans.
Trump’s actions signal a move toward institutionalizing people with disabilities, advocates warn
For decades, disabled people have fought for their rights to go to school and live alongside peers without disabilities — rights that some fear could be losing ground under the Trump administration.
Last month, the Education Department announced it would offload oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and lawmakers.
Meanwhile, following a White House push to police homelessness, the Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to institutionalizing any person with a disability.
Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society, advocates said.
“It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled live their lives,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I can’t imagine that as a country, that would be something that we would agree we should go back to.”
Writer E. Jean Carroll calls for Trump to pay $5.8M after high court appeal fails
Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll asked a judge Tuesday to require President Donald Trump to pay her $5 million from a jury verdict that concluded Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s and defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019.
Lawyers for Carroll filed papers in Manhattan federal court to say Trump is unjustly trying to further delay release of the money after the Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil jury verdict.
The amount has grown to nearly $5.8 million with interest and should be required by the court to be disbursed, the lawyers wrote, saying Trump has resumed his defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers considered asking the high court to reconsider its decision.
The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by Trump in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a midtown Manhattan luxury department store after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.
Trump to visit newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota’s Badlands
Trump will visit North Dakota on Wednesday to see the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a massive facility exploring the 26th president's life, built in the rugged, lonely landscape where the young easterner built his conservation values while ranching and hunting in the 1880s.
The 96,000-square-foot library opens over the weekend on July 4, the pinnacle date of celebrations this year honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But Trump is coming early to see the $450 million project, a push of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum from when he was governor of North Dakota, and bringing the official celebrations of the nation's birth to a region synonymous with its westward expansion.
All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the library, which joins more than a dozen such libraries throughout the country examining the lives and legacies of U.S. presidents from Ronald Reagan in California, to Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York to Herbert Hoover in Iowa. The Obama Presidential Center recently opened in Chicago, bringing together four former presidents for the occasion.
Harvard professor with polarizing alien theories is picked to lead new White House UFO council
A polarizing Harvard astronomer known for splashy theories about alien visits has been tapped by the White House to lead a team of outside scientists to study the national security risks posed by UFOs.
Avi Loeb, a cosmologist who studied black holes and served as head of Harvard’s astronomy department until 2020, was recently appointed to helm a new scientific advisory council tasked with investigating the origins of mysterious orbs and other objects reported by military personnel in recent years. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s push to declassify more information about the issue.
Loeb’s team will report to a new White House panel focused on UFOs, now often referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.
For the last decade, Loeb has been scanning the skies and seas for evidence of intelligent alien life. He began the quest in 2017 as scientists puzzled over an interstellar object soaring by Earth. While others proposed it was a comet or ice chunk, Loeb said it could be a thin "light sail" detached from an alien spacecraft.
House GOP deadlocks over Trump’s demands, sending lawmakers home early
As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday this weekend, the legislative branch has momentarily called it quits.
The House leadership on Tuesday abruptly canceled votes and sent lawmakers home early for the holiday recess, Speaker Mike Johnson 's majority once again ground to a standstill by a Republican revolt over their own party's agenda.
In this case, it's a standoff blocking the annual defense bill — with pay raises for the troops and other matters at a time of war — as the renegade Republicans push to include President Donald Trump's own priority, the SAVE America Act, a strict voter ID bill. Last week, the Senate similarly shuttered after Trump's demands.
The emptying Capitol provides another snapshot of the imbalance of power in Washington as a headstrong executive confronts a weakened Congress.
Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year
President Donald Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.
Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump's own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.
Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.
Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.
Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in $4.7 million.