After a scramble in the Senate, Republicans voted on Saturday to advance Trump’s signature “big, beautiful” bill, with a 51-49 vote.
Republicans had been divided over the controversial bill, with some rejecting the proposal to cut welfare programmes in order to cover tax breaks, and others demanding deeper cuts.
The key procedural hurdle was cleared hours after the debate opened, with two Republicans, senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voting with Democrats to block consideration of the measure.
Meanwhile, the tech billionaire Elon Musk again voiced criticism of bill, describing it as “utterly insane and destructive”.
Here are the key stories at a glance:
The Republican-controlled US Senate advanced president Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill in a key procedural vote on Saturday, raising the odds that lawmakers will be able to pass the legislation in coming days.
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The billionaire tech entrepreneurElon Muskon Saturday criticized the latest version ofDonald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive”.
“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!”Musk wroteon Saturday.
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The Democratic former Minnesota state house speakerMelissa Hortmanwas honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral on Saturday that was attended byJoe BidenandKamala Harris.
The former president and vice-president were joined by more than 1,000 other mourners.
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Eric Trump has hinted that he or another of the Trump family could run for president when his father’s second term in the White House comes to an end.
Eric, who is co-executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said, the road to the White House “would be an easy one” if he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps.
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Police in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet theTrump administration’s mass deportation targets.
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The son of an American citizen and military veteran – but who has no citizenship to any country – was deported fromthe USto Jamaica in late May.
Jermaine Thomas’s deportation, recently reported on by theAustin Chronicle, is one of a growing number of immigration cases involving military service members’ relatives or even veterans themselves who have been ensnared in the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.
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Two menface spending their lives in prisonafter a federal judge sentenced them for their roles in the deaths of 53 people found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022.
The sudden loss of key US satellite datacould send hurricane forecasting back “decades”, scientists say.
Mark Zuckerberg’ssecret list of top AI talentto poach has the tech world atwitter.
Catching up?Here’s what happened on27 June 2025.