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

The House gives final approval to Trump’s big tax bill in a milestone for his second-term agenda

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans propelled President Donald Trump’s big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill to final passage Thursday in Congress, overcoming multiple setbacks to approve his signature second-term policy package before a Fourth of July deadline.

The tight roll call, 218-214, came at a potentially high political cost, with two Republicans joining all Democrats opposed. GOP leaders worked overnight and the president himself leaned on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York delayed voting for more than eight hours by seizing control of the floor with a record-breaking speech against the bill.

Trump celebrated his political victory in Iowa, where he attended the kickoff for a year of events marking the country’s upcoming 250th anniversary.

“I want to thank Republican congressmen and women, because what they did is incredible,” he said. The president complained that Democrats voted against the bill because “they hate Trump — but I hate them too.”

Trump said he plans to sign the legislation on Friday at the White House.

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What’s in Trump’s big bill that passed Congress and will soon become law

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans muscled President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cut bill through the House on Thursday, the final step necessary to get the bill to his desk by the GOP’s self-imposed deadline of July 4th.

At nearly 900 pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations.

Democrats united against the legislation, but were powerless to stop it as long as Republicans stayed united. The Senate passed the bill, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. The House passed an earlier iteration of the bill in May with just one vote to spare. It passed the final version 218-214.

Here’s the latest on what’s in the bill and when some of its provisions go into effect.

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 about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

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Supreme Court will take up a new case about which school sports teams transgender students can join

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a case over state restrictions on which school sports teams transgender students can join.

Just two weeks after upholding a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, the justices said they will review lower court rulings in favor of transgender athletes in Idaho and West Virginia. The case will be argued in the fall.

The nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls on girls sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court.

At the federal level, the Trump administration has filed lawsuits and launched investigations over state and school policies that have allowed transgender athletes to compete freely. This week, the University of Pennsylvania modified a trio of school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by her participation on the women’s swimming team, part of a resolution of a federal civil rights case.

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Strikes kill 94 Palestinians in Gaza, including 45 people waiting for aid, authorities say

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli airstrikes and shootings killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza late Wednesday and Thursday, including 45 who were attempting to get much-needed humanitarian aid, hospitals and the Health Ministry said Thursday.

Families wept over the bodies from a strike that hit a tent camp during the night as displaced people slept in southern Gaza. At least 13 members of a single family were killed, including at least six children under 12.

“My children, my children … my beloved,” wailed Intisar Abu Assi, sobbing over the bodies of her son and daughters and their young children. Another woman kissed the forehead of a dead little girl wrapped in a blanket on the floor of the morgue at Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis.

In central Gaza, a boy stroked the face of his dead sister, 6-year-old Heba Abu Etiwi, in a morgue at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital. The girl and another of her brothers were among eight people killed when a strike Wednesday evening hit near a stand selling falafel.

A separate strike on a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced people also killed 15 people.

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Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. arrested by ICE for deportation, federal officials say

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Famed Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. has been arrested for overstaying his visa and lying on a green card application and will be deported to Mexico, where he faces organized crime charges, U.S. federal officials said Thursday.

The arrest came only days after the former middleweight champion lost a match against influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul in Anaheim, California. The Department of Homeland Security said officials determined Chávez should be arrested on June 27, a day before the fight. It was unclear why they waited to act for days after the high-profile event.

The 39-year-old boxer, according to his attorney Michael Goldstein, was picked up Wednesday by a large number of federal agents while he was riding a scooter in front of a home where he resides in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Studio City near Hollywood.

“The current allegations are outrageous and simply another headline to terrorize the community,” Goldstein said.

Many people across Southern California are on edge as immigration arrests have ramped up, prompting protests and the federal deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to downtown Los Angeles.

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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lawyers say he is a changed man. Will that spare him from more time behind bars?

NEW YORK (AP) — In rejecting Sean “Diddy” Combs’ release on bail, a federal judge confronted the hip-hop impresario with a disturbing aspect of his criminal case that his lawyers couldn’t deny: his history of violence.

Combs’ defense lawyers claimed he is a changed man. But Judge Arun Subramanian on Wednesday let the Bad Boy Records founder know that his hopes for freedom soon are slim — even after the jury acquitted him on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges that could have put him in prison for life.

Subramanian’s words signaled how he may approach sentencing Combs for his convictions on two lesser prostitution-related charges, which each carry a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison.

The judge, citing a now-infamous video of Combs beating a former girlfriend and photographs showing injuries to another ex-girlfriend, made clear that he plans to hold Combs accountable for the years of violence and bullying behavior that were exposed at his eight-week trial.

Combs’ punishment is Subramanian’s decision alone, and the judge will have wide latitude in determining a sentence. While judges often adhere to the federal judiciary’s formulaic guidelines meant to prevent disparity in sentences for the same crimes, they are not mandatory.

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Trump kicks off a yearlong celebration of America’s 250th anniversary in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — President Donald Trump turned a heartland festival for the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary into a celebration of himself, basking in a crowd of supporters Thursday night shortly after Congress approved tax cut legislation that he championed.

On the eve of the July 4th holiday, Trump said “there could be no better birthday present for America than the phenomenal victory we achieved just hours ago, when Congress passed the one big beautiful bill to make America great again.”

The Republican president plans to sign the legislation Friday during a picnic at the White House, while stealth bombers and fighter jets that participated in recent airstrikes in Iran fly overhead, a symbolic synthesis of the overwhelming force that he’s deployed to reshape Washington and the country.

“We’ve saved our country,” he boasted after taking the stage, pumping his fists while singer Lee Greenwood belted out Trump’s campaign trail anthem “God Bless the USA.” In addition to tax breaks, the legislation boosts funding for deportations while cutting back on healthcare and food assistance for low income people.

The event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines was the opening act for a yearlong birthday party to mark two and a half centuries of American independence. The plans will culminate next summer with a massive fair on the National Mall in Washington featuring exhibits from every state.

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First immigration detainees arrive at Florida center in the Everglades

The first group of immigrants has arrived at a new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” a spokesperson for Republican state Attorney General James Uthmeier told The Associated Press.

“People are there,” Press Secretary Jae Williams said, though he didn’t immediately provide further details on the number of detainees or when they arrived.

“Next stop: back to where they came from,” Uthmeier said on the X social media platform Wednesday. He’s been credited as the architect behind the Everglades proposal.

“Stood up in record time under @GovRonDeSantis ’ leadership & in coordination with @DHSgov & @ICEgov, Florida is proud to help facilitate @realDonaldTrump ’s mission to enforce immigration law,” the account for the Florida Division of Emergency Management posted to the social media site X on Thursday. Requests for additional information from the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and FDEM, which is building the site, were not returned early Thursday afternoon.

The facility, at an airport used for training, will have an initial capacity of about 3,000 detainees, DeSantis said. The center was built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, 28,000-plus feet (8,500 meters) of barbed wire and 400 security personnel.

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Guilty plea by Kohberger doesn’t end quest for more details in Idaho college student slayings

With a series of “yes” replies to a judge, a man accused of killing four Idaho college students pleaded guilty in exchange for life in prison and no death penalty. But left untold so far: What motivated Bryan Kohberger to commit the middle-of-the-night knife attacks and why those victims?

More details could emerge when Kohberger returns to court for his sentence on July 23. Some answers could also be in the hundreds of documents filed by prosecutors and defense lawyers that have been under seal and out of public view starting in 2022.

“It is important that a full record be available, as if the matter and the evidence was exposed at trial, if we’re going to have a complete understanding of what went on,” said David Leroy, former Idaho attorney general.

Kohberger’s hearing in a Boise, Idaho, courtroom was finished in less than an hour Wednesday. A trial where loads of details would have been revealed was expected to have lasted at least three months.

“We deserve to know when the beginning of the end was,” the family of victim Kaylee Goncalves said in a Facebook post.

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Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ star, dies at 67

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Madsen, the actor best known for his coolly menacing, steely-eyed, often sadistic characters in the films of Quentin Tarantino including “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2,” has died.

Madsen was found unresponsive in his home in Malibu, California, on Thursday morning and pronounced dead, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Watch Commander Christopher Jauregui said. He is believed to have died of natural causes and authorities do not suspect any foul play was involved. Madsen’s manager Ron Smith said cardiac arrest was the apparent cause. He was 67.

Madsen’s career spanned more than 300 credits stretching back to the early 1980s, many in low-budget and independent films. He often played low-level thugs, gangsters and shady cops in small roles. Tarantino would use that identity, but make him a main character.

His torture of a captured police officer in Tarantino’s 1992 directorial debut “Reservoir Dogs,” in which Madsen’s black-suited bank robber Vic “Mr. Blonde” Vega severs the man’s ear while dancing to Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You” was an early career-defining moment for both director and actor.

Madsen told the Associated Press in 2012 that he hated having to do the scene, especially after the actor playing the officer, Kirk Baltz, ad-libbed a line where he begged for his life because he had children.