Hook News Brief | 30.06.25
Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” a step closer to becoming reality
US Senate Republicans pushed forward President Donald Trump's sweeping tax cut and spending bill aka the “big, beautiful bill” in a marathon weekend session.
This even as a nonpartisan forecaster, the Congressional Budget Office, said it would add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over a decade.
Republicans have rejected the CBO's longstanding methodology to calculate the cost of legislation whilst Democrats claimed Republicans are “deploying fake math and accounting gimmicks to hide the true cost of the bill".
Trump threatens to withhold funds to NYC
Staying with the US, Trump on Sunday threatened to cut New York City off from federal funds if favoured mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, “doesn’t do the right thing” should he be elected.
Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president said – a communist. He reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers saying that he doesn't think that NYC should have billionaires. More than $100 billion flows to the city from the federal government through different entities and programs, according to the city’s comptroller last year.
Russia launches biggest air attack of three-year war on Ukraine
Shifting focus to the Russia-Ukraine war - Russia fired more than 500 aerial weapons at Ukraine overnight, in a barrage that Kyiv described as the biggest air attack so far of the three-year war.
The scale of the attacks called into question comments made on Friday by Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian President said that Moscow was ready for a fresh round of direct peace talks in Istanbul.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Sunday that the attack in fact showed that Putin had decided to pursue war.
Tens of thousands flee Gaza City after Israel warns of major offensive
In the Middle East, tens of thousands of Palestinians were fleeing eastern parts of Gaza City in the north of the territory after Israel warned of a major offensive.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Avichay Adraee in a post on social media warned of “military operations [that] will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city centre to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organisations”.
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