Trump administration seeks to sell Kluczynski Federal Building, 10 others in Chicago
Among the buildings are the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building at 230 S. Dearborn St. The 42-story office building was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and is part of Chicago's Federal Center — together with the Everett M. Dirksen Federal Courthouse across Dearborn Street, and the Loop Station Post Office.
The Kluczynski Federal Building houses Department of Labor, Drug Enforcement Administration, General Service Administration, and Internal Revenue Service offices, among others — as well as the offices of U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois).
The Dirksen Federal Courthouse and the post office are not on the list. But the list also includes several nearby buildings — including the Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building at 77 W. Jackson Blvd., which houses offices for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other government bodies, and the 11 West Quincy Court building, which was purchased in 2012 to house the Department of Labor.
The Harold Washington Social Security center at 600 W. Madison St., the U.S. Customhouse at 610 S. Canal St., and several other buildings — including some that do not house federal offices or facilities — are also among the 11 buildings designated as "non-core" properties the federal government wants to unload.
A spokesperson for the General Services Administration issued this statement:
"GSA's Public Buildings Service's foundational mission is to deliver cost-effective workspace solutions for its federal agency customers, enabling them to fulfill their missions for the American taxpayer.
"GSA is committed to being a smart steward of taxpayer dollars by cutting unneeded space and reducing costs. Non-core assets cost over $430M annually to operate and maintain, represent over $8.3 billion in recapitalization needs and often do not provide federal employees the high-quality work environments they need to fulfill their missions. The list of non-core assets is subject to change, and [Public Buildings Service] remains fully committed to meeting the mission needs of our customer agencies and delivering world class work environments for the federal workforce as they return to office."
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CNN
2 minutes ago
- CNN
Brazil's President Lula says Trump was ‘not elected to be emperor of the world,' as US-Brazil spat escalates
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has hit back at Donald Trump's tariff threats, saying that his American counterpart was elected as the leader of the United States and 'not to be the emperor of the world.' Last week, Trump threatened Brazil with crippling tariffs of 50% starting August 1, according to a letter posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. In the letter, Trump linked the astronomical tariffs threat to what he described as a 'witch hunt' trial against Brazil's right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally, is facing trial in Brazil for allegedly attempting to overthrow Lula following his presidential win in 2022. He could face more than four decades behind bars if found guilty of masterminding the coup. Speaking exclusively to CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Thursday, da Silva, who is widely known as Lula, said that Trump's threats had broken away from 'protocol' and argued that his predecessor's fate cannot be part of trade negotiations. 'The judiciary branch of power in Brazil is independent. The president of the Republic has no influence whatsoever,' he said, adding that Bolsonaro 'is not being judged personally. He is being judged by the acts he tried to organize a coup d'etat.' Bolsonaro has denied all allegations of wrongdoing. Speaking through an interpreter, Lula also expressed disappointment at Trump's approach, saying at first that he couldn't believe the US president's social media post was authentic. 'It was very unpleasant,' he told Amanpour. 'I thought it was fake news.' Brazil has now vowed reciprocal tariffs if Trump follows through with his threat, marking the first time in months another country has called Trump's bluff. 'Brazil is to take care of Brazil and take care of the Brazilian people, and to take not to take care of the interests of the others,' Lula said, adding: 'Brazil will not accept anything imposed on it. We accept negotiation and not imposition.' Unlike the more than 20 other countries that have received letters from Trump this month, the US ran a $6.8 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year. That means that the US exported more goods to Brazil than it imported from there – an imbalance that should already satisfy Trump's trade agenda. Top US exports to Brazil in 2024 included aircraft and spacecraft, fuels, industrial machinery like nuclear reactors, and electrical equipment, according to US Census Bureau data. A retaliatory 50% Brazilian tariff on American goods could severely harm these industries. Still, Lula underscored his willingness to come to an agreement with Washington on Thursday, saying that it is up to Trump to 'seriously' consider negotiation and that he hopes the US president will change his mind. 'I'm not a progressive president. I am the president of Brazil. I don't see President Trump as a far-right president. I see him as the president of the of the US – he was elected by the American people,' the former labor organizer told Amanpour, dismissing the possibility that their ideological backgrounds could embitter negotiations. 'The best thing in the world is for us to sit around a table and talk,' he added. 'If President Trump is willing to take seriously the negotiations underway between Brazil and the US, then I'll be open minded to negotiate whatever may be necessary. But what is important is that the relationship between the two countries cannot go on like this,' he said. Meanwhile on Thursday, the US launched an investigation into what it called 'unfair' trading practices by Brazil, escalating the spat with the world's 10th-largest economy. The investigation will focus on digital trade and electronic payment services, preferential tariffs, and anti-corruption interference, as well as intellectual property protection, to determine whether there are 'unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict' American commerce, according to a statement by the United States Trade Representative (USTR). It will also look into ethanol market access and illegal deforestation. CNN's Elisabeth Buchwald, Lily Farrant and Ana Bickford contributed reporting.
USA Today
3 minutes ago
- USA Today
Senate passes aid, public broadcasting cuts
On Thursday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Senate has passed another legislative victory for President Donald Trump. USA TODAY National Correspondent Trevor Hughes breaks down a new Trump policy that will keep immigration detainees locked up longer. Trump signed a bill making tough sentences for fentanyl trafficking permanent. Execution is back on for Texas inmate Robert Roberson who has strong innocence claims. Last year, we spoke with Brian Wharton, the former police detective who led the investigation and subsequent arrest of Roberson. Wharton said he got it wrong and Roberson is innocent. Listen to or watch that episode here. Gun groups want a law reversed on mailing through the postal service. USA TODAY Reporter Andrea Riquier takes a look at how the president has been amping up pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell and how investors are reacting. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, July 17th, 2025. This is USA TODAY. It's The Excerpt. Today, the Senate passes another victory for Trump and Congress, plus what a new administration policy means for keeping immigrants detained longer, and a lawsuit deals with mailing handguns through the Postal Service. ♦ The Senate earlier today approved President Trump's plan for billions of dollars in cuts to funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. It's his latest legislative win. Most of the cuts are to programs to assist foreign countries suffering from disease, war, and natural disasters, while the plan also eliminates all $1.1 billion the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years. Standalone so-called rescissions packages have not passed in decades. Lawmakers have typically been reluctant to cede their control of spending, but Republicans in Trump's second term who hold narrow majorities in the Senate and House have shown little desire to resist the President's policies. Now that the Senate has signed off, the bill returns to the House where lawmakers must approve the upper chamber's changes. They're expected to do so before an end of week deadline. You can read more throughout the day on ♦ A new Trump policy will keep immigration detainees locked up longer. I spoke with USA TODAY national correspondent Trevor Hughes to learn more. Hello, Trevor. Trevor Hughes: Hey, good to be here. Taylor Wilson: Thanks for hopping on. So just what is this new Trump immigration policy? How does it change the existing detention landscape? Trevor Hughes: Really, this comes down to a difference between criminal court and immigration court. And criminal court, which most Americans are familiar with maybe from Law and Order operates differently than immigration court. And in the immigration court, the administration controls basically everything, the judges, the prosecutors, the custody, and so they have a lot more power over exactly how things run. And in this case, what's happened is the Trump administration has essentially said, we are no longer going to hold bond hearings for detainees, which means they can no longer ask a judge to release them on personal recognizance or maybe a $50,000 bond or a $5,000 bond or even GPS monitoring while their immigration case is pending. So that means more or less, most of the people who get detained by immigration authorities now will stay in custody until their case is disposed of either through a decision to release them back into the community with permission to remain or deportation. Taylor Wilson: And Trevor, what are you hearing from immigrant advocates about all this? Trevor Hughes: Well, there's a real concern that this is a solution in search of an actual problem. Statistics show that something like 85, 90% of people who are released on bond show up to their court hearings, because again, these are people who are being considered for release by judges. Many times they're being released with GPS monitors. These are not folks who are considered a danger to the community, right? Folks who are considered a danger are kept in custody. And so immigrant rights folks really are making the point that this is a loss of due process. We're locking up people who don't need to be locked up. They're not a flight risk. And it's sort of pulling apart families, pulling apart the people who are earning the money, and making it harder for people to fight their immigration cases. Taylor Wilson: Well then Trevor, if statistically they're not a flight risk, they're not, again, statistically speaking, committing crimes on a mass level, why does the Trump administration push for this? Trevor Hughes: Well, the Trump administration has been arguing for years that people who are living in this country without permission should not be living in this country without permission. And they've changed a lot of rules to increase the number of people targeted. But at the end of the day, the Trump administration's argument is if you want to live in America, you have to have come through the correct immigration process. And their argument is none of these folks did. Taylor Wilson: We should say that these detentions cost US taxpayers as well, right? Trevor Hughes: Oh, they're terribly expensive. But again, it's really important to remember, President Trump ran on a very specific platform of increased immigration enforcement. Everyone knew this would cost a lot more money. He said it would cost a lot more money. And the new federal spending plan contains billions of dollars to make that happen. Huge numbers of new ICE agents, huge numbers of new detention beds. But this is the priority of the current United States government. Taylor Wilson: Trevor Hughes is a national correspondent with USA TODAY. Thank you, Trevor. Trevor Hughes: You bet. ♦ Taylor Wilson: President Trump has signed a law that extends tougher prison sentences for fentanyl trafficking surrounded by relatives of people who died from overdoses and lawmakers who approved the bill. Donald Trump: We'll be getting the drug dealers pushers and peddlers off our street, and we will not rest until we have ended the drug overdose epidemic. Taylor Wilson: The law places fentanyl on the Drug Enforcement Administration's list of most serious drugs with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. The list includes drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD. Fentanyl has been temporarily assigned to the Schedule 1 category since 2018. The law makes the designation permanent. It also makes permanent mandatory minimum penalties of five years in prison for trafficking 10 grams of fentanyl and 10 years for 100 grams. ♦ A Texas judge has rescheduled the execution of a death row inmate who won a rare stay of execution last year as prison officials were poised to administer his lethal injection. The judge set Robert Roberson's execution for October 16th, almost exactly a year after the Supreme Court in the state granted him a stay on his last execution day. Roberson is imprisoned in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. Despite strong evidence that suggests he is innocent, he was convicted based on shaken baby syndrome, which has since been largely debunked. Last year with hours left to live, Roberson's life was spared following an effort by a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers. We explored this case last year on a special episode of The Excerpt. The lead investigator in Roberson's case, Brian Wharton, told me that Robert is a completely innocent man and they got it wrong. Brian Wharton: Robert is a completely innocent man, and we got it completely wrong because we were looking for the wrong things. Taylor Wilson: You can go back and listen to or watch that episode with a link in today's show notes. ♦ Two gun organizations are challenging a 1927 law prohibiting mailing handguns through the Postal Service. Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation, together with Pennsylvania resident Bonita Shreve have filed a lawsuit in the Western district of Pennsylvania against the US Postal Service. Shreve wants to mail her father a handgun as a gift according to the filing, but is prohibited by federal law and Postal Service regulations. In their filing the plaintiffs argue the Postal Service allows businesses and government officials to ship handguns and that individual Americans should be able to do the same. Private shipping companies like UPS and FedEx have policies prohibiting shipping a handgun. A spokesperson for the Postal Service said it is USPS policy not to comment on pending litigation. ♦ President Trump is amping up pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell. I caught up with USA TODAY Reporter Andrea Riquier for more and a look at how investors are reacting. Thanks for joining me, Andrea. Andrea Riquier: Sure. Always a pleasure. Taylor Wilson: All right. So how is President Trump amping up the pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell? Andrea Riquier: Trump has been putting the pressure on the Fed Chair ever since the start of this year as he was inaugurated for a second term. But what's been going on over the past couple of weeks is that he's sort of started to enlist other people to bring the pressure. His budget director is one example. Other congressional Republicans are another example. In speaking with reporters, the president initially seemed to suggest that he was really getting ready to fire Jerome Powell, but then also sort of walked it back a little and sort of seemed to deflect some of that back onto Congressional Republicans saying, "I wouldn't fire him, but when I polled members of Congress, they all said they would fire him." Taylor Wilson: Well, you mentioned Congressional Republicans. I mean, what do we hear from lawmakers on this? Trump clearly is saying that at least some Republicans support firing him. Andrea Riquier: So another example is not just Congressional Republicans, but Bill Pulte, who is the Director of FHFA, the Federal Housing Finance Agency which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, again, the Office of Management and Budget Director, who among other things is talking about a headquarters renovation. The Fed has been spread among several different buildings in Washington DC. This renovation was planned for years and years and years, actually even pre-pandemic. And it's actually seen as a long-term money saver because it's going to modernize a lot of buildings, which we've also heard from other Trump administration agencies that they're working in very old, very dated, in some cases slightly unsafe buildings. So this was the Fed's very well-vetted effort to modernize, streamline and cut costs. But just about any construction project you've ever heard of, it has gone over budget. This spans the pandemic period when things were very difficult. The cost of labor was crazy. The cost of getting materials into the country was awful. So it's not surprising that this big project had cost overruns, but now it's sort of being used as a political tool to say, Powell's overseeing this project that's just gone completely amok. That's important because in order to be fired, in order to be removed from his seat as Fed Chair, there has to be cause. And so the idea is, while this is a very political step, it is seen as one step towards firing for cause. Taylor Wilson: Andrew, is this new terrain, the idea of a president pressuring the central bank in this way? Andrea Riquier: It's not new at all. President Nixon apparently rode hard on his Fed Chair. President Lyndon Johnson really wanted to bring interest rates down when he was fighting a war in Vietnam. What is different, at least what my sources have told me, is that Trump, as we know, does things very publicly. In some cases some people say that there is a private Trump who will often reassure people to their face and be friendly and polite and professional in one-on-one or small group settings, but then he kind of lashes out in public. Taylor Wilson: How is all this landing with either Powell himself or just kind of inside the Fed more broadly? Andrea Riquier: So my sense is that Powell is just sort of keeping his head down and trying to be professional and stay above the fray. He has said publicly that he will not resign. Nobody knows if he could be forced into something. He probably doesn't even know what kind of pressure could be coming from the White House. But one sort of telling moment came a couple days ago when the Fed put out a big response to these critiques about the headquarters that we just talked about. They went through an FAQ of frequently asked questions about the renovations, and pointed out what I just said. This was approved. It was vetted. Yes, there are cost overruns, but there's very good reasons for it, and ultimately it should save taxpayer money. And so a lot of people watching this think that this is the Fed sort of being really forced to respond, being backed into a corner as it were. Taylor Wilson: Well, all eyes are on the markets and investors. How have investors been reacting? Andrea Riquier: So markets yesterday did have an initial response to this discussion. Both stocks and bonds sold off when Trump was initially talking around the idea that Powell could be fired. But then when he's clarified and sort of walked it back a little bit, assets recovered. What we have not seen yet is we've not seen the kind of big freak out that we saw, for example, in April after the tariffs were first rolled out, that really caused politicians to sit up and take notice. So I wrote a piece saying, who knows when we'll see that, but we're not there yet. Taylor Wilson: Another interesting piece from you, Andrea. USA TODAY reporter, Andrea Riquier. Thanks for stopping by. Andrea Riquier: Thank you, Taylor. ♦ Taylor Wilson: And coming up later this afternoon, what if your hospital room had a view of trees instead of a parking lot? Turns out it could change your recovery. Dr. Jay Maddock: People with a view of the park-like setting, got out of the hospital faster, used less painkillers, and had less post-op complications. Taylor Wilson: Public health expert Dr. Jay Maddock joins my colleague Dana Taylor to share the surprising health benefits of greening our medical spaces. Catch that conversation today, beginning at four PM Eastern Time, right here on this feed. ♦ And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. And as always, you can email us at podcasts@ You can find a link to that email in today's show notes. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
Los Angeles Times
3 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Good riddance to those green-energy tax breaks. Now keep closing other loopholes
The 'Big Beautiful Bill' did a lot of things, not all of them good. One positive step was to repeal many of the Inflation Reduction Act's green-energy subsidies. It's a little disappointing that Congress didn't repeal all of them, as President Trump promised during the campaign. Yet it's also somewhat amazing to witness a genuine rollback, something that was never a given for this bill and which typically loses out to special-interest politics. To be clear, I want more green energy from more sources, including wind, solar, geothermal and whatever other promising avenues innovation makes possible. But subsidies like those of the Inflation Reduction Act are the wrong way to get there. They distort the tax code, misallocate capital and favor companies already in the game, to the detriment of new entrants that might bring something more transformative. The result isn't more abundance; it's cronyism masquerading as climate policy. The promise to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act's sprawling tax credits and handouts was once a central part of the GOP's economic platform. According to a Cato Institute analysis, these at one point were going to amount to $1.2 trillion over 10 years, many times the originally projected cost. The House version of the budget took a meaningful swing at it, with hard deadlines for wind and solar tax credits and tighter eligibility geared toward projects that could begin construction within 60 days of enactment and be in service before 2029. It wasn't perfect, but it was a real attempt to inject discipline into a policy that had run off the rails. Senators, however, had other plans and diluted the reform. New carveouts were added. Key provisions were extended, and the effective phaseout was punted years into the future. Thanks to generous grandfathering language, projects that start construction within a year of the budget bill's enactment can lock in 10 more years of production or investment tax credits. And what, by the way, counts as starting construction? Spending just 5% of expected costs on solar panels or booking a consulting firm. In Washington, that's good enough. The good news is that even this watered-down reform is expected to cut green subsidies by about $500 billion over 10 years. That's no small feat, especially in a town where 'cutting' usually means 'slightly slowing the growth of programs we already can't afford.' It's doubly impressive given that the forces fighting to maintain the subsidies outspent reformers by orders of magnitude. Now, we're hearing the usual refrain — 'But fossil fuels are subsidized too!' — as evidence of the outrage and unfairness that it is to trim green energy subsidies down. I sympathize with the desire to end fossil-fuel subsidies. I want an end to all private-sector subsidies. If your business model depends on special treatment in the tax code, then, as economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin once put it, you don't have a business. You have a tax shelter. Yes, there are some lingering fossil-fuel subsidies on the books. Cato's Adam Michel helpfully identifies them: credits for enhanced oil recovery, for marginal wells and for carbon capture and sequestration. These are targeted giveaways, and they should also go. However, what most people clamoring for the end of fossil-fuel subsidies are pointing to aren't subsidies at all, but simply neutral tax treatments — like expensing and percentage depletion — that apply across many industries. They might distort investment decisions in general, but they are not special favors for oil and gas. In addition, when you compare the size of green versus fossil-fuel subsidies, the difference is staggering. Scaled by energy output, green energy receives subsidies at rates 19 to 30 times those of coal, oil and natural gas. According to Michel's analysis, 94% of the fiscal cost of energy-related tax provisions over the next decade — $1.2 trillion — would have gone to renewables. Only 6% — about $70 billion — would benefit fossil fuels. And again, much of that 6% isn't tailored to fossil fuel companies; it just happens to benefit them. In other words, the idea that green subsidies got eviscerated while fossil subsidies thrive isn't correct. That's not an argument for maintaining fossil-fuel subsidies; that's an argument for taming the outrage. If we've learned anything here, it's that cutting subsidies is hard. Once they're in place, armies of rent-seekers mobilize to preserve them. Renewable-energy developers, financial firms and politically connected manufacturers descend on Capitol Hill to keep the money flowing. But we've learned something else: Fighting back can work. Even this partial rollback shows that reformers aren't powerless. The next time someone says eliminating tax preferences is impossible, point to $500 billion in savings. We got that rollback not because the politics were easy, but because some people stood firm. Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate.
