Key events
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Also, the Los Angeles City fire department (LAFD) issued an update on their initial statement, saying that 124 fire personnel assisted at the scene.
It added that the LAFD had coordinated transport for seven people in a critical condition, six in a serious condition and 10 in a fair condition. Seven patients refused transport after assessment on the scene, said the LAFD.
Share
Number injured in Hollywood vehicle incident revised to 30, says LAFD
The Associated Press has more on the story that a vehicle drove into a crowd in Hollywood, injuring more than 20 (see 4am PDT). That number has been revised to 30.
Victims were transported to local hospitals and trauma centers, according to Capt Adam Van Gerpen, public information officer for the Los Angeles fire department. At least three were in critical condition after being injured along Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood, the fire department said in a statement earlier.
According to the AP, Van Gerpen told ABC that a line of people – the majority female – were waiting to enter a nightclub when they were struck by a vehicle that also hit a taco truck and valet stand.
Paramedics discovered that one of the patients had a gunshot wound, Van Gerpen said.
“This is under police investigation,” he said. “This will be a large investigation with the LAPD.”
Share
Updated at 08.36 EDT
Sidney Blumenthal
Sidney Blumenthal, the former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has written for the Guardian about why Donald Trump cannot dispel the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein:
Some enchanted evening, Donald Trump saw a stranger across a crowded room.
It is likely that there is hardly anyone living who knows exactly under what glowing lights Donald Trump met Jeffrey Epstein, except perhaps Trump himself and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison term for helping to procure minors for sexual abuse. Trump said in an interview in 2002, when his Epstein relationship was still tight, that it had been a 15-year mutual admiration society. Epstein was “a terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with,” and “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”. Epstein described himself as “Donald’s closest friend for 10 years”.
The 1990s and early 2000s were the heyday of the Trump-Epstein romp. Roger Stone, Trump’s dirty trickster who was dumped from the 1994 Bob Dole presidential campaign when he and his wife were exposed apparently advertising for threesomes, was a hanger-on in the Palm Beach demimonde. “There’s 100 beautiful women and 10 guys. Look, how cool are we?” he told the Washington Post in 2016. “I was happy to be invited. I mean, it was great.”
The Trump biographer Michael Wolff told me on my podcast The Court of History how Epstein opened his safe in his New York townhouse for him to retrieve a pile of about a dozen photographs of Trump at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion. “They were kind of spread out like playing cards,” Wolff said. “And it was Trump – with girls of uncertain age. In two of them, topless girls are sitting on Trump’s lap. In another, he has a visible stain on his pants while several girls are laughing and pointing at it.” Wolff said: “I think it’s certainly not unlikely that they were in the safe when the FBI came in after his arrest and took everything.”
Read on here:
Share
In Trump’s lawsuit against Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal, the US president calls the paper’’s report “false and defamatory” and demands at least $10bn in damages and court costs from Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters, News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson and related corporate entities.
You can read the court documents in full here:
Share
Health experts raise alarm over RFK Jr’s ‘war on science’ amid mass firings and budget cuts
Peter Stone
The Trump administration’s “war on science” appears to have entered a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.
The decision comes as Kennedy abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting of a key health care advisory panel, the US Preventive Services Task Force, earlier this month. That, combined with his recent removal of a panel of more than a dozen vaccine advisers, signals that his dismantling of the science-based policymaking at HHS is likely far from over.
“The current administration is waging a war on science,” warned Celine Gounder, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at New York University in a keynote talk in May to graduates of Harvard’s School of Public Health.
“Today we see rising threats to the public health institutions that have kept our world safe for generations,” she said, citing “cuts to research that benefits the lives of millions, looming public health emergencies that are not being addressed with the urgency they demand, and a continued coordinated attack on the very idea of the scientific process.”
Gounder added:
Over the past few months, we have seen the Trump administration engage not only in medical misinformation, but in active censorship of scientific discourse.
Since he took the helm at HHS, Kennedy’s unscientific views on vaccines and some other medical matters coupled with the agency’s widespread research and staff cuts, have prompted protests from scientists inside and outside HHS plus lawsuits.
Share
Updated at 07.21 EDT
More than 20 injured after vehicle drives into crowd in East Hollywood, LA fire department says
Away from politics, the Los Angeles fire department (LAFD) is reporting that a vehicle has driven into a crowd of people in East Hollywood, injuring more than 20.
Up to five people are in critical condition, a further eight to ten are in serious condition and 10-15 in fair condition, the department reported on Saturday.
The incident occurred on Santa Monica Boulevard. In a statement, the department added that the LAFD was “coordinating patient triage and transport at this time”.
More details soon …
Share
Updated at 07.17 EDT
Cecilia Nowell
Democrats are condemning CBS for its recent decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, noting the news comes just a few days after its host criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a $16m lawsuit with Donald Trump.
Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who appeared as a guest on Colbert’s show on Thursday night, later wrote on social media:
If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.
In early July, Paramount settled a “frivolous” lawsuit with Trump over the president’s claim that CBS News deceptively edited an interview with then presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Paramount is also seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4bn merger with Skydance Media. On Monday, Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe”.
Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images
Colbert’s firing would not be the first potentially spurred by a dispute with the president. In February, after MSNBC fired host Joy Reid, Trump celebrated her show’s cancellation. Reid, a Black woman, had been a vocal critic of Trump and spoke frankly about the Black Lives Matter movement and war in Gaza. And in December, ABC News agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos with a $15m payment to a Trump foundation and museum, as well as paying $1m in the president’s legal fees.
The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who has called for an investigation into Paramount’s relationship with Trump over the Skydance merger, wrote:
CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount.
Skydance is owned by David Ellison, the son of a close Trump ally, Larry Ellison.
In a joint statement, Paramount and CBS executives wrote that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night”.
Writing on his own social media platform, Trump celebrated the show’s cancellation:
I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.
Share
Callum Jones
Memo from the White House: inflation is “right on track”, it declared this week, citing the latest official data. Price growth is now “very low”, according to Donald Trump. The actual statistics paint a markedly different picture.
Just six months after he regained power, in part by promising to rapidly reduce prices, Trump has presided over the chaotic rollout of tariffs on an array of overseas products that many have argued risk having the exact opposite effect.
After a lull, the consumer price index (CPI) is back on the rise. In June, everything from fruit and washing machines to dresses and toys became more expensive.
Businesses in the US and around the world have struggled to keep up with the Trump administration’s erratic rollout of its aggressive trade strategy: the daily White House soap opera of warnings, threats, confusion, deadlines, delays and drama.
Putting to one side the steady stream of twists, cliffhangers and all-caps declarations, each episode has pushed US tariffs higher. The overall average effective tariff rate is now set to hit 20.6%, according to the non-partisan The Budget Lab at Yale, its highest level since 1910.
Eventually, someone has to foot the bill.
By Trump’s telling, the countries he targets will be forced to pay up. But in reality, tariffs are paid by the importer – US-based companies, in this case – and often passed on.
Tariffs are a burden. One way or another, the impact typically is felt along each link of the supply chain, from the initial manufacturer to the customer who buys the finished product. “All through that chain, people will be trying not to be the ones who pick up the cost,” noted Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, at a recent press conference.
“But ultimately, the cost of the tariff has to be paid and some of it will fall on the end consumer,” added Powell. “We know that. That’s what businesses say. That’s what the data says from past evidence. So we know that’s coming.”
The effect is not immediate, though. It might take Trump a matter of minutes to announce a tariff on Truth Social, but the full effects can take months to work their way through the economy.
Share
Updated at 06.42 EDT
Trump’s US foreign aid funding cut stalls water projects, increasing risks for millions, finds Reuters
The Trump administration’s decision to slash nearly all US foreign aid has left dozens of water and sanitation projects half-finished across the globe, creating new hazards for some of the people they were designed to benefit, Reuters has found.
Reuters has identified 21 unfinished projects in 16 countries after speaking to 17 sources familiar with the infrastructure plans. Most of these projects have not previously been reported, it adds.
With hundreds of millions of dollars in funding cancelled since January, workers have put down their shovels and left holes half dug and building supplies unguarded, according to interviews with US and local officials and internal documents seen by Reuters. As a result, millions of people who were promised clean drinking water and reliable sanitation facilities by the United States have been left to fend for themselves, reports Reuters.
Water towers intended to serve schools and health clinics in Mali have been abandoned, according to two US officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. In Nepal, construction was halted on more than 100 drinking water systems, leaving plumbing supplies and 6,500 bags of cement in local communities, according to Reuters. The Himalayan nation will use its own funds to finish the job, according to the country’s water minister Pradeep Yadav.
According to Reuters, in Lebanon, a project to provide cheap solar power to water utilities was scrapped, costing 70 people their jobs and halting plans to improve regional services. The utilities are now relying on diesel and other sources to power their services, Suzy Hoayek, an adviser to Lebanon’s energy ministry told the news agency.
In Kenya, residents of Taita Taveta county told Reuters they are now more vulnerable to flooding than they had been before, as half-finished irrigation canals could collapse and sweep away crops. Community leaders say it will cost $2,000 to lower the risk – twice the average annual income in the area.
Share
Updated at 06.25 EDT
Trump says 10 Israeli hostages to be released from Gaza ‘very shortly’
Cecilia Nowell
Ten more hostages will be released from Gaza “very shortly”, Donald Trump said at the White House on Friday. The news comes as the president continues to push for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said during a dinner with Republican senators. He also praised his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “fantastic”.
The current Israel-Hamas ceasefire proposal includes terms calling for the return of 10 hostages, and the remains of 18 others. In exchange, Israel would be required to release an unspecified number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Earlier on Friday, Axios reported that the director of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, visited Washington this week in hope that the United States would support its efforts to ask other countries to take in the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still living in Gaza. Mossad chief David Barnea told Witkoff that Israel has discussed relocating Palestinians to Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya.
Trump has boasted that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas would be fothcoming since posting on his social media platform on 1 July that Israel has agreed to the “necessary conditions” to finalise a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza.
Last week, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House, where he presented Trump with a copy of a letter he had sent to the Nobel committee nominating the president for a Nobel peace prize.
Share
