
Trump completes six months in White House, calls US 'most respected country'
His celebratory message comes amid poll results showing that many Americans disapprove of his performance so far.POLL NUMBERS DROP OUTSIDE GOP BUT TRUMP REMAINS CONFIDENTAlthough Trump painted a glowing picture of his presidency, public opinion paints a more complicated story. According to Decision Desk HQ, about 52.7% of US adults disapprove of the president's performance, while 44.6% approve. A separate poll from The Economist/YouGov reported that Trump's disapproval rating is currently the highest it's been since his second term began.Trump's approval on immigration, one of his key issues, has also dropped. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed only 41% of Americans approve of his handling of immigration policies. That's down from 43% in June. The same 41% also said they approve of his overall performance as president—the lowest reading of his second term.Even so, Trump remains upbeat about his support within the Republican Party and among his base. In another Truth Social post, he wrote, "My Poll Numbers within the Republican Party, and MAGA, have gone up, significantly, since the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax was exposed by the Radical Left Democrats and, just plain 'troublemakers.'"He claimed support among Republican voters was as high as 95% in some polls. "They have hit 90%, 92%, 93%, and 95%, in various polls, and are all Republican Party records. The General Election numbers are my highest, EVER! People like Strong Borders, and all of the many other things I have done. GOD BLESS AMERICA. MAGA!" he wrote.Trump's comments also come shortly after he directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release grand jury records tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case. The decision followed growing pressure to uncover more details about the financier's alleged crimes and his connections to powerful individuals.- Ends
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Indian Express
19 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Ten years after US Supreme Court's ‘Obergefell' judgment legalised same-sex marriage, an erosion of LGBTQIA+ rights
Written by Kanav N Sahgal June 26 marked the 10-year anniversary of Obergefell vs Hodges — the landmark US Supreme Court ruling that legalised same-sex marriage in the country. While some activists celebrated the anniversary, others decried how drastically the legal and political landscape has regressed for LGBTQIA+ people since that historic victory. Backlash against the LGBTQIA+ community, especially transgender individuals, is on the rise across the United States. But more tellingly, the US Supreme Court's jurisprudence in the years since Obergefell has shifted sharply to the right — limiting rather than expanding LGBTQIA+ rights in a range of arenas: Education, public accommodation law and, more recently, healthcare access. During this time, the Court has also routinely upheld religious objections to LGBTQIA+ equality in four separate cases — most recently, just days ago, in the case of Mahmoud vs Taylor, where the Court ruled that parents have the right to opt their children out of public-school instruction involving LGBTQIA+-themed storybooks based on religious free exercise rights. Two previous cases — one in 2018 (Masterpiece Cakeshop vs Colorado Civil Rights Commission) and another in 2023 (303 Creative LLC vs Elenis) — involved business owners who operated public accommodations and approached the Court seeking permission to deny same-sex couples' access to services. In both cases, the Supreme Court sided with the business owners, holding that enforcing anti-discrimination laws in these contexts would violate their First Amendment rights. In another case from 2021, Fulton vs City of Philadelphia, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favour of a Catholic foster care agency that refused to certify same-sex couples as foster parents. This list is not exhaustive — and does not even include the Court's recent rulings that have sharply curtailed legal protections for transgender people. But why this shift? One obvious reason is that the composition of the US Supreme Court has changed drastically over the past decade. During his first term as president, Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Court — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — giving the nine-member bench a comfortable conservative supermajority. These three joined three other conservative-leaning justices already on the bench, forming a solid conservative bloc of six. This left only three Democratic appointees on the Court, unable to influence outcomes unless at least two conservative justices defected to their side. Also, unlike in previous decades, it has now become increasingly rare to find justices who cross ideological lines or serve as moderating influences. In the past, several justices — though appointed by Republican presidents — maintained a degree of independence in their rulings. Take, for example, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, both of whom, despite being Republican appointees, did at various times cast decisive swing votes in landmark LGBTQIA+ rights cases. Justice Kennedy famously authored the majority opinion in Obergefell and provided the crucial fifth vote that allowed the decision to take effect. Yet, just a few years later, he ruled against LGBTQIA+ plaintiffs in Masterpiece Cakeshop, authoring the majority opinion there as well. Similarly, Justice O'Connor cast the fifth and deciding vote in Bowers vs Hardwick (1986), a case that upheld laws criminalising sodomy. But in 2003, she joined the majority in Lawrence vs Texas, which overturned Bowers and effectively decriminalised consensual same-sex intimacy nationwide. It would be difficult, if not downright impossible, to imagine or expect the current crop of conservative justices to display that kind of openness to LGBTQIA+ issues today. But a second, less frequently discussed reason for the weakening of jurisprudence on LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States comes from the Obergefell decision itself. While Obergefell legalised same-sex marriage nationwide, it also included a carveout that acknowledged the rights of individuals with 'decent and honourable religious or philosophical' objections to continue holding dissenting views on same-sex marriage. Ironically, this one sentence — arguably obiter dicta, and therefore not necessarily binding precedent — has since been repeatedly invoked by the Supreme Court's conservative majority again and again. In Mahmoud, for instance, the conservative bloc relied on Obergefell to explicitly justify parents' religious objections to LGBTQIA+ themed story books being read to their children. In a similar vein, the conservative bloc's resistance to substantive due process claims in the context of LGBTQIA+ rights has also intensified in recent times, most notably since the reversal of Roe vs Wade (1973) in Dobbs vs Jackson Women's Health Organisation (2022). There, in his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly called for the Court to reconsider Obergefell, suggesting rather unequivocally that if the logic employed in Dobbs were to be applied consistently, then the constitutional foundation for same-sex marriage may also fail to survive renewed judicial scrutiny. Ten years after Obergefell, therefore, same-sex marriage remains a legal right — but the broader legal framework supporting it has been deeply eroded by the US Supreme Court, and there appears to be little hope for reversal in the near future. The writer is a researcher at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and visiting faculty at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru

Time of India
25 minutes ago
- Time of India
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Putin Dollar Shock For Trump After BRICS Declaration? Russia's Big De-Dollarisation Announcement Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov clarified that BRICS nations don't aim to replace the US dollar, but rather seek alternatives for mutual settlements to circumvent US sanctions. He stated BRICS intends to trade in national currencies, with Russia already conducting 90% of payments with partners in local denominations. This counters US President Trump's concerns and threats of tariffs on BRICS countries, who are also developing "BRICS Pay," a decentralized blockchain payment system for cross-border transactions. 42.2K views | 1 day ago
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Business Standard
39 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Parliament LIVE updates: Rajya Sabha, Lok Sabha adjourned till 2 pm amid ruckus by opposition
Parliament Monsoon session LIVE updates: Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar's resignation at the outset caught many off guard. Catch all the developments related to the proceedings in the Parliament here New Delhi Parliament LIVE news: Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar stepped down from his position on Monday night, citing health concerns and the necessity to adhere to medical advice. His resignation, submitted to the President of India, was made under Article 67(a) of the Indian Constitution. In his resignation letter, Dhankhar conveyed his 'deepest gratitude' to the President for her 'unwavering support and the soothing wonderful working relationship we maintained during my tenure.' He also acknowledged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Council of Ministers. With the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar, an election for the Vice President's post is now imminent. Both the ruling BJP and the INDIA bloc are expected to begin scouting for potential candidates, though the numbers currently favour the ruling party, placing the opposition at a disadvantage. The Monsoon session of Parliament opened contentiously on Monday, with the opposition repeatedly forcing adjournments in the Lok Sabha. Their demands included an urgent debate on Operation Sindoor and other pressing matters. Simultaneously, proceedings began in both Houses concerning the proposed removal of Justice Yashwant Varma, following the discovery of burnt bundles of cash at his residence. A removal notice bearing the signatures of 63 opposition members was submitted to the Rajya Sabha Chairman, while a parallel notice backed by 152 MPs — including Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi — was handed to the Lok Sabha Speaker, marking a rare bipartisan initiative. 10:34 AM Trump administration released FBI records on MLK Jr despite his family's opposition The Trump administration has released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination. The release involves an estimated 200,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977.