(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump traveled to Florida Tuesday to visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ the new, quickly constructed immigrant detention center that will hold up to 5,000 foreign nationals facing deportation. “Very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet,” Trump said at a panel Tuesday. The facility – which might ultimately look more like a deportation camp – is the nearly 40-square-mile Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Miami-Dade County. Nestled amidst the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve and with a nearly 11,000-foot runway, it was selected to be quickly transformed into a deportation site. It is typically used for military training.

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(The Center Square) – Against all odds, U.S. House Republicans finally united around the Senate-revised “big, beautiful bill” and passed it in a 218-214 vote Thursday afternoon, sending the multitrillion-dollar budget reconciliation package to the president’s desk. The bill’s passage marks yet another herculean feat by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who not only persuaded – with President Donald Trump’s help – the most recalcitrant GOP holdouts to vote for the bill as is, but also passed it by a self-imposed July 4 deadline. The $3.3 trillion megabill, formerly titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, hikes the debt ceiling by $5 trillion and implements the bulk of Trump’s tax, energy, border and defense agenda.

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(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump heads home from the NATO summit in the Netherlands touting a slew of international successes, including the member nations committing to more than doubling their defense spending. NATO partners, comprised of 32 member nations, agreed to Trump’s demands that the countries increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. The proposal initially had been met with resistance, given that the current spending threshold is 2%. However, in recognition of Russian aggression and terrorism threats on member nations, the leaders agreed to increase their spending by 2035 substantially.

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(The Center Square) – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday that the U.S. gained nothing from its strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Khamenei, in his first public comments since a ceasefire with Israel on Tuesday, said the U.S. "gained no achievements" from strikes on Fordow, a key nuclear site in Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the strikes "obliterated" Iran nuclear facilities. On Wednesday he assessed Iran's nuclear program was destroyed.

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(The Center Square) – As the conflict between Israel and Iran closes in on a week since it began, President Donald Trump won’t say if U.S. will get involved in the conflict. Despite dire warnings from Iran against the U.S. and its potential involvement, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Iranians want to meet, adding they want to come to the White House. However, he appeared to throw water on the idea, adding the Islamic Republic should have made a deal.

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(The Center Square) – Federal stalking and murder charges have been filed against 57-year-old Vance Boelter in a 20-page charging document on Monday in what was described as the “stuff of nightmares.” Boelter is expected to have a 1:30 p.m. Monday appearance in federal court in St. Paul. The charges include firearms offenses, stalking using interstate commerce and murder for the stalking and killing of Minnesota House Speaker Emeritus Melissa Hortman and her husband along with the shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and his wife. The Hoffmans are expected to make a full recover.

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(The Center Square) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the state to take over some funding of government services for rural, thinly-populated fiscally constrained counties and allow them to eliminate their property taxes. DeSantis made the statement at an economic development announcement in Crawfordville on Monday. His estimate of how much this would cost Florida taxpayers would be about $300 million per year, a drop in the bucket of the nearly $50 billion in general fund spending that is part of a tentative budget deal by lawmakers.

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(The Center Square) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that U.S. talks with China in London resulted in a tentative deal that still needs China's President Xi Jinping's final approval. The president announced the deal in an all-caps post on Truth Social. "FULL MAGNETS, AND ANY NECESSARY RARE EARTHS, WILL BE SUPPLIED, UP FRONT, BY CHINA. LIKEWISE, WE WILL PROVIDE TO CHINA WHAT WAS AGREED TO, INCLUDING CHINESE STUDENTS USING OUR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN GOOD WITH ME!)." Tariffs will stay at levels agreed to in the deal struck in Geneva last month, an administration official told the Wall Street Journal.

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