AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Senate Republicans struggle for votes as Trump’s big bill teeters during rare Saturday session

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is taking a prolonged procedural vote dragging past a third hour during a rare Saturday evening session as Republicans struggled to advance President Donald Trump’s package of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds by his July Fourth deadline.

The proceedings came to a standstill and Vice President JD Vance arrived at the Capitol to break a potential tie. Tense scenes were playing out in the chamber as senators huddled in negotiations, and then broke off for private meetings. Several Republican senators were registering their opposition to proceeding.

Republicans are using their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks. Not all GOP lawmakers are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8 trillion in Trump tax breaks.

“It’s time to get this legislation across the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., as the session was underway.

Ahead of the expected roll call, the White House released a statement of administrative policy saying it “strongly supports passage” of the bill. Trump himself was at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday with GOP senators posting about the visit on social media.

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What’s in the latest version of Trump’s big bill now before the Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. Now it’s up to Congress to decide whether President Donald Trump’s signature’s domestic policy package will become law.

Trump told Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by the Fourth of July.

Senators were working through the weekend to pass the bill and send it back to the House for a final vote. Democrats are united against it.

Here’s the latest on what’s in the bill. There could be changes as lawmakers negotiate.

Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump’s first term expire. The legislation contains roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts.

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Israeli strikes kill at least 72 people in Gaza as ceasefire prospects move closer

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes killed at least 72 people across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, health workers said, as ceasefire prospects were said to be improving after 21 months of war.

Three children and their parents were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent camp in Muwasi near the southern city of Khan Younis. They were struck while sleeping, relatives said.

“What did these children do to them? What is their fault?” said the children’s grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, as others knelt to kiss their bloodied faces and wept. Some placed red flowers into the body bags.

Also among the dead were 12 people near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more in apartments, according to staff at Shifa Hospital. More than 20 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, according to health officials.

A midday strike killed 11 people on a street in eastern Gaza City, and their bodies were taken to Al-Ahli Hospital. Another strike on a gathering in eastern Gaza City killed eight including five children, the hospital said. A strike on a gathering at the entrance to the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed two, according to Al-Awda Hospital.

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Hundreds of thousands mourn top Iranian military commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the streets of downtown Tehran on Saturday for the funeral of the head of the Revolutionary Guard and other top commanders and nuclear scientists killed during a 12-day war with Israel.

The caskets of Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh and others were driven on trucks along the capital’s Azadi Street as people in the crowds chanted: “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

Salami and Hajizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, June 13, as Israel launched a war it said was meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, specifically targeting military commanders, scientists and nuclear facilities.

State media reported more than 1 million people turned out for the funeral procession, which was impossible to independently confirm, but the dense crowd packed the main Tehran thoroughfare along the entire 4.5 kilometer (nearly 3 mile) route.

There was no immediate sign of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the state broadcast of the funeral. Khamenei, who has not made a public appearance since before the outbreak of the war, has in past funerals held prayers for fallen commanders over their caskets before the open ceremonies, later aired on state television.

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Democrats wrestle with how to conduct oversight as Trump officials crack down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just hours after she pleaded not guilty to federal charges brought by the Trump administration, New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver was surrounded by dozens of supportive Democratic colleagues in the halls of the Capitol. The case, they argued, strikes at the heart of congressional power.

“If they can break LaMonica, they can break the House of Representatives,” said New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Federal prosecutors allege that McIver interfered with law enforcement during a visit with two other House Democrats to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark, New Jersey. She calls the charges “baseless.”

It’s far from the only clash between congressional Democrats and the Republican administration as officials ramp up deportations of immigrants around the country.

Sen. Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed by federal agents while attempting to speak at a news conference for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. At least six groups of House Democrats have recently been denied entry to ICE detention centers. In early June, federal agents entered the district office of Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and briefly detained a staffer.

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Chief Justice Roberts warns against heated political words about judges

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking at a moment when threats against judges are on the rise, warned on Saturday that elected officials’ heated words about judges can lead to threats or acts of violence by others.

Without identifying anyone by name, Roberts clearly referenced Republican President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York when he said he has felt compelled to issue public rebukes of figures in both parties in recent years.

“It becomes wrapped up in the political dispute that a judge who’s doing his or her job is part of the problem,” Roberts said at a gathering of lawyers and judges in Charlotte, North Carolina. “And the danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work. So I think the political people on both sides of the aisle need to keep that in mind.”

Roberts appeared at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judicial conference on the day after the Supreme Court issued the final decisions of its term, including a major victory for Trump that limits judges’ ability to use court orders with nationwide reach to block his agenda. C-Span carried Roberts’ conversation with Judge Albert Diaz, the 4th Circuit’s chief judge.

Roberts first took issue with Trump’s comments in 2018, when Roberts responded to Trump’s description of a judge who rejected his migrant asylum policy as an “Obama judge.” In March, Roberts rejected calls for impeaching judges, shortly after Trump demanded the removal of one who ruled against his deportation plans.

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Biden, Harris and Walz attend funeral for former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Democratic former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman was honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral Saturday where former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris joined over 1,000 mourners.

Hortman was fatally shot two weeks earlier by a man posing as a police officer in an attack that Minnesota’s chief federal prosecutor has called an assassination. It and another shooting also left her husband, Mark, dead and a state senator and his wife seriously wounded.

“Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history. I get to remember her as a close friend, a mentor, and the most talented legislator I have ever known,” Gov. Tim Walz said in his eulogy. ”For seven years, I have had the privilege of signing her agenda into law. I know millions of Minnesotans get to live their lives better because she and Mark chose public service and politics.”

Neither Biden nor Harris spoke, but they sat in the front row with the governor, who was Harris’ running mate in 2024. Biden and Harris held hands during the Lord’s Prayer, a common practice, before embracing during the passing of the peace. Biden and then Harris then reached over to shake Walz’s hand.

Biden was also one of more than 7,500 people who paid their respects Friday as Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, Gilbert, lay in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda in St. Paul. Gilbert was seriously wounded in the attack and had to be euthanized. Biden also visited the wounded senator in a hospital.

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Many forget the damage done by diseases like whooping cough, measles and rubella. Not these families

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — In the time before widespread vaccination, death often came early.

Devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. These illnesses were the main reason why nearly one in five children in 1900 never made it to their fifth birthday.

Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges like polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others. Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy pushes immunization rates down. And well-established vaccines are facing suspicion even from public officials, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, running the federal health department.

“This concern, this hesitancy, these questions about vaccines are a consequence of the great success of the vaccines – because they eliminated the diseases,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “If you’re not familiar with the disease, you don’t respect or even fear it. And therefore you don’t value the vaccine.”

Anti-vaccine activists even portray the shots as a threat, focusing on the rare risk of side effects while ignoring the far larger risks posed by the diseases themselves — and years of real-world data that experts say proves the vaccines are safe.

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At 100, this globetrotting Catholic priest still bakes pies, enjoys opera and celebrates daily Mass

BLUE BELL, Pa. (AP) — Throughout his remarkable lifetime, the Rev. James Kelly has baptized thousands of people, married thousands more, ministered to the sick in hospitals, and traveled the world extensively. He became friends with an opera superstar and, yes, even with a saint.

The longest-serving priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of his ordination and his 100th birthday. He’s grateful to have reached these milestones, but nearly didn’t after experiencing a health challenge last year that required life-saving surgery.

He feels God gave him some extra time and tries to make each day count.

“The Lord was wonderful to me to give me the health and the strength and the energy to travel, to meet beautiful things — God was always giving me surprises,” Kelly says.

Born on Jan. 7, 1925, in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Roxborough to a devoutly Catholic family, Kelly’s path to the priesthood seems ordained from the start. He loved attending church. Other children dreamt of becoming athletes, doctors, firefighters. He wanted to be a priest.

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‘Kisses yes, Bezos No,’ protesters say, as Bezos wedding bonanza stirs controversy in Venice

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Hundreds of protesters marched through Venice’s central streets on Saturday to say “No” to billionaire Jeff Bezos, his bride and their much-awaited wedding extravaganza, which reached its third and final day amid celebrity-crowded parties and the outcries of tired residents.

On Friday, the world’s fourth-richest man and his bride Lauren Sanchez Bezos tied the knot during a private ceremony with around 200 celebrity guests on the secluded island of San Giorgio.

The wedding, however, angered many Venetians, with some activists protesting it as an exploitation of the city by the billionaire Bezos, while ordinary residents suffer from overtourism, high housing costs and the constant threat of climate-induced flooding.

As the two newlyweds prepared for the final party Saturday evening, hundreds of Venetians and protesters from across Italy filled Venice’s tiny streets with colorful banners reading “Kisses Yes, Bezos No” and “No Bezos, no War.” Venice has around 50,000 residents.

The demonstration contrasted with the expensive wedding bonanza, seen by critics as an affront to the lagoon city’s fragile environment and its citizens, overwhelmed by throngs of tourists.