House to consider DHS funding bill
The House will now consider the funding agreement and could vote on it as soon as Friday. It would then go to Donald Trump to sign it.
Senate majority leader John Thune on Friday said the outcome was “unfortunate”. “The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms but, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day,” he said, according to Politico.
Thune said he had spoken to the president and that the House was “aware” of the Senate’s plan but he did not know how it would react.
If passed, the agreement would fund DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration and US Coast Guard.
Key events
Peter Stone
Peter Ticktin, an 80-year-old Florida lawyer who has various ties to Donald Trump and represents some 2020 election deniers, has become an outspoken advocate for an emergency executive order on US elections that would overhaul voting rules and rights by ending machine and mail-in voting.
The exact nature and extent of Ticktin’s contact and influence with Trump and other administration officials is not clear. But election experts and analysts see Ticktin’s push for an executive order as worrying, and part of a broader drive by fellow election conspiracists who are now promoting similar and legally dubious emergency order plans to revamp voting rules this year in order to boost Republican fortunes in the fall elections.
A 17-page draft order dated April 2025 that Ticktin has shared with the Guardian and other news outlets would make far-reaching changes in voting rules. It would require all voters in 2026 to re-register with proof of citizenship, end the use of vote-tabulation machinery and compel hand-counting of all ballots, require that counting for all races be finished on election day by midnight, ban mail-in ballots, and make other changes.
House to consider DHS funding bill
The House will now consider the funding agreement and could vote on it as soon as Friday. It would then go to Donald Trump to sign it.
Senate majority leader John Thune on Friday said the outcome was “unfortunate”. “The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms but, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day,” he said, according to Politico.
Thune said he had spoken to the president and that the House was “aware” of the Senate’s plan but he did not know how it would react.
If passed, the agreement would fund DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration and US Coast Guard.
Donald Trump says the US has won its war with Iran. Iranian officials responded to this by mocking him.
This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker about analysis suggesting Trump is losing his touch when it comes to sealing the deal, winning elections or just having the energy to run the White House:
Chuck Schumer welcomes Senate DHS funding deal
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer welcomed the DHS funding agreement passed on a voice vote on Thursday night, but added a deal could have been “accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way”.
The agreement secured a deal to pay TSA workers, the Coast Guard and fund Fema, among others, after nearly six weeks of a partial shutdown – but crucially without agreeing further funding for ICE.
In a statement, Schumer said: “Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms, and we will continue to fight for those reforms.”
Saudi Arabia has urged the US to ramp up attacks on Iran, a Saudi intelligence source has confirmed, while it is weighing a decision on whether to join the fight directly.
The Saudi source confirmed reporting in the New York Times that said the kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has urged Donald Trump not to cut short his war against Iran, and that the US-Israeli campaign represented a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East.
The intelligence source said Riyadh was not just calling for the military campaign to be continued, but to be intensified. Trump appeared to confirm the report about the crown prince’s role, telling journalists on Tuesday: “Yeah, he’s a warrior. He’s fighting with us.”
Here’s more on this story from the Guardian’s Julian Borger and Aram Roston:
You can follow the latest updates on the Middle East crisis in our live blog here:
A war of regression: how Trump bombed the US into a worse position with Iran
Four weeks into a war that was going to take four days, and that has so far cost the US about $30-40bn and Israel $300m (£225m) a day, America is further away from a diplomatic agreement with Iran than it was in May 2025.
Not only has the war failed to persuade Iran to agree to dismantle its nuclear programme in the comprehensive and irreversible way America demanded in a 15-point paper that it tabled on 23 May last year, the US is now having to negotiate to reopen the strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that has been open ever since the invention of the dhow (with a short exception of a tanker war in the 1980s between Iran and Iraq).
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor. Read his analysis here:
The Senate funding agreement came hours after Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would sign an order instructing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to pay Transportation Security Administration agents immediately.
“I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports,” Trump wrote on social media. “I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports.”
The US president did not state at the time where the funding would come from.
G7 foreign ministers met on Friday in France, following president Donald Trump’s repeated complaints that America’s allies have ignored or rejected requests for help in the Iran war.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio joined his counterparts from the G7 just 24 hours after Trump’s latest round of insults lobbed at Nato and as instability in oil markets persisted with the Iran war entering its fourth week along with uncertainty over the status of potential negotiations to end the crisis.
Most of America’s closest allies have greeted the Iran war with deep skepticism, sentiments that were on display as the G7 foreign ministers met at a historic 12th-century abbey in Vaux-de-Cernay, outside Paris, even as they urged a diplomatic solution to resolve the situation.
Tom Perkins
A new trove of chemical producer and US Environmental Protection Agency documents reveal an elaborate industry operation that killed strong regulations around formaldehyde, a highly toxic carcinogen widely used in everyday goods from cosmetics to furniture to craft supplies.
The Biden EPA in late 2024 determined any exposure to formaldehyde increased the risk of cancer and other health problems. The Trump EPA in late 2025 moved to undo those findings and replace them with less protective figures.
The newly released documents show the industry and the Trump EPA’s scientific justification for weakening the protections largely relied on, or aligned with, a small number of studies led by a chemical industry scientist, Rory Conolly, who argued that some exposure to formaldehyde is safe. The Conolly studies were funded by chemical trade groups. Between 2008-2024, the EPA had concluded the research was out of date or unreliable, documents show.
Once the Trump administration took over the EPA, it changed formaldehyde risk levels to align with the level Conolly found was safe. It relied in part on his assessments, limited data from other researchers, or studies the EPA previously found to be out of date. Advocates say the documents show the Trump EPA often “cherry picked” data.
The documents, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a non-profit, also show an unusual three-day meeting in 2023 among the EPA and top formaldehyde producers, users and trade groups. Among the presenters was Conolly.
Senate approves funding for TSA and most of DHS, not ICE
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
The Senate has ended a budget standoff that has forced thousands of airport security staff to work without pay and caused long delays at airports.
A lapse in government funding has left Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff – who screen passengers, baggage and cargo – working without pay since mid-February. Airports in several cities have warned travelers to arrive hours earlier than usual because of long security lines.
The agreement would fund DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration and US Coast Guard, the statement said. CNN reported that the House of Representatives will still need to act before funded agencies within the department can reopen.
The Senate approved the funding package by a voice vote in a rare overnight session.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the outcome could have been reached weeks ago, and vowed that his party would continue fighting to ensure Trump’s “rogue” immigration operation “does not get more funding without serious reform.”
He added:
Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms.
However, Republican senator Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the Democrats had damaged Congress’ annual funding process, weakened national security, and set “a precedent that they may one day come to regret”.
“Democrats remained intransigent and unreasonable with their list of demands,” she said in a statement.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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US markets saw their biggest slump since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran on Thursday as Donald Trump said the conflict’s impact on oil prices had not been as bad as he expected. The Dow closed 450 points down, while the S&P 500 dipped 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.3%, plunging into correction territory, which happens when an index falls at least 10% below its most recent peak. More here.
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The department of treasury announced that US paper currency will soon feature President Donald Trump’s signature to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary. The move marks the first time a sitting US president’s signature will appear on legal tender. To accommodate this change, the treasurer’s signature will be removed for the first time since 1861. More here.
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The Senate failed to achieve 60 votes needed to pass an amendment to the Save America act that would require voters to present photo ID to cast a ballot. The chamber voted 52-47, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass. No Democrats voted for it. Earlier today, Trump urged Republicans to terminate the Senate filibuster.
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During a cabinet meeting today, Donald Trump said that Iran was letting 10 oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz as an apparent goodwill gesture in the supposed negotiations. He also repeated his earlier remarks that Iran is “begging to make a deal”.
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Donald Trump wants to renovate the White House’s treaty room, traditionally a meeting space for diplomats and statesman, into a guest bedroom with an en suite bathroom, according to the New York Times.