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Trump administration has separated dozens of children from their parents for a second time, AP finds

(AP) Eleven-year-old Ederson Galicia Alva had just stepped off the plane and into the Miami airport’s dim hallways when federal agents pulled his mother aside for questioning. Again. ... Panic welled up. His excitement at soon being back at recess with his Florida classmates fell away. Would the government take her away again? This was not his first trauma. In 2018, when he was just 3 years old, Ederson was taken from his mother’s arms at the U.S.-Mexico border under the first Trump administration’s family separation policy and kept apart from her in a government facility for months.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refuses to say whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits

(AP) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to say Wednesday whether President Donald Trump and his family would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration abandoned plans for a $1.776 billion compensation fund that would have benefited the president’s allies. “There’s continuing litigation, and I’m unable to comment on ongoing litigation,” Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.

President Trump says he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general

(NPR) President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal lawyer who has aggressively pursued the Republican president's agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role. Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide. ... "We are going to make him permanent attorney general," Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Republicans see trouble with independents for Trump

(The Hill) Republican senators are growing increasingly concerned about President Trump’s weak polling numbers with independent voters and warn that the GOP may be headed for a political wipeout in the November election because Trump’s popularity with Republican primary voters isn’t translating across the broader electorate. Several Republican senators told The Hill that polling data shared at a Tuesday conference meeting by Senate Republican Conference Committee Chair Tom Cotton (Ark.) indicated Democrats have a significant polling lead among independents five months before the general election.

Thursday's Condensed News Cartoons

Plans for a Trump family-linked resort spark protests in Albania

(NPR) A massive coastal development project linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, is facing growing resistance from protesters in Albania. The government says the development on the Adriatic coast would be transformational for the former communist nation as it seeks to enter the high-end tourism market and pushes for European Union membership. But the venture, spanning an abandoned island and a nearby stretch of seafront on Albania's southern coast, has drawn opposition from environmental campaigners and critics of long-time Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Trump plans $700 million to build coal plants, export site

(Mining.com) President Donald Trump is preparing to use Cold War-era authorities to dole hundreds of millions of federal dollars to support coal-fired electricity as well as US exports of the fossil fuel. ... Trump is expected to announce he’s delivering much of the funding for US coal plants and an American export terminal under the 1950 Defense Production Act during an Oval Office event Thursday, according to a White House official who asked for anonymity because the plan isn’t yet public.

Top DOJ official deletes post suggesting alternate plan for compensating alleged 'weaponization' victims

(ABC News) The Justice Department’s number three-ranked official suggested overnight in a since deleted post that the Trump administration would be moving forward with an alternative plan to compensate victims of claimed Biden-era "weaponization." The post came just hours after the acting attorney general committed to Congress that DOJ was scrapping plans for a so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund."

Democrats see the stars aligning in Iowa

(Politico) The economic turmoil of the past year-and-a-half has been felt acutely in Iowa, where the agriculture-heavy economy has been jolted by tariffs. Medicaid cuts in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act are ransacking rural health facilities, Democrats say, and several clinics in the state have closed. And the Iran war has spiked prices for fertilizer and diesel — critical supplies for the farm state. That’s all creating a dynamic that Democrats feel will propel voters their way in the midterms, giving them a shot at their first major statewide wins since the Obama era.

DOJ Secures Updated Southern Poverty Law Center Indictment

(Bloomberg Law) The Justice Department filed a superseding indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center in an apparent attempt to address deficiencies lawyers flagged with an earlier document levying fraud charges against the group. The grand jury indictment filed Tuesday by the US attorney’s office in the Middle District of Alabama, adds more detail in defense of the Trump administration’s claim that the SPLC misled donors and banks by concealing payments to informants infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and other extremist groups.