With narrow majorities and intra-party splits, Republicans faced a battle to give Trump his bill to sign – but they did it

Just a few months ago, analysts predicted that Republicans in Congress – with their narrow majorities and fractured internal dynamics – would not be able to pass Donald Trump’s landmark legislation.

On Thursday, the president’s commanding influence over his party was apparent once again: the bill passed just in time for Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

Democratic leader spoke for more than eight hours to rail against Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending bill

The Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries broke the record for the longest House floor speech ever on Thursday after he spoke for more than eight hours to delay a vote on Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spending bill.

Early on Thursday, after a marathon night of arm-twisting, cajoling and pressure by tweet, House Republicans said they were finally ready to vote on Trump’s $4.5tn tax-and-spending package – a colossal piece of legislation the president wants passed by Friday, the Independence Day holiday.

The Reservoir Dogs and Donnie Brasco actor had a rare, sometimes scary power, as well as a winning self-awareness and levity

• Michael Madsen, star of Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Donnie Brasco, dies aged 67

• Michael Madsen– a life in pictures

Until 1992, when people heard Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel on the radio, they might smile and nod and sing along to its catchy soft-rock tune and goofy Dylan-esque lyrics. But after 1992, with the release of Quentin Tarantino’s sensationally tense and violent crime movie Reservoir Dogs, the feelgood mood around that song forever darkened. That was down to an unforgettably scary performance by Michael Madsen, who has died at the age of 67.

Stuck in the Middle, with its lyrics about being “so scared in case I fall off my chair”, was to be always associated with the image of Madsen, whom Tarantino made an icon of indie American movies, with his boxy black suit, sinister, ruined handsomeness and powerful physique running to fat, playing tough guy Vic Vega, AKA Mr Blonde. He grooved back and forth across the room, in front of a terrified undercover cop tied to a chair, dancing to that Stealers Wheel number, holding his straight razor, which he had removed from his boot – smirkingly preparing to torture the cop (that is, torture him further) by cutting off his ear.

Court halts ruling that allowed migrants to challenge removal to countries where they could be in danger

The supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for the deportation of several immigrants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The decision comes after the court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.

Early-morning negotiations proved enough to persuade hardline House conservatives to back bill in 218-214 vote

• US politics live – latest updates

The US House of Representatives passed Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill on Thursday, handing the president the first major legislative victory of his second term and sending to his desk wide-ranging legislation expected to supercharge immigration enforcement and slash federal safety net programs.

The 218-214 vote came after weeks of wrangling over the measure that Trump demanded be ready for his signature by Friday, the Independence Day holiday. Written by his Republican allies in Congress and unanimously rejected by Democrats, the bill traveled an uncertain road to passage that saw multiple all-night votes in the House and Senate and negotiations that lasted until the final hours before passage. Ultimately, Republicans who had objected to its cost and contents folded, and the bill passed with just two GOP defections: Thomas Massie, a rightwing Kentucky lawmaker, and Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a Pennsylvania district that voted for Kamala Harris in last year’s election.

The actor, best known for his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, was found unresponsive in Los Angeles

• Michael Madsen – a life in pictures

• Peter Bradshaw’s appreciation

The actor Michael Madsen has died aged 67 at his home in Malibu, according to authorities and his representatives. No foul play is suspected, the sheriff’s department confirmed, after deputies responded to the Los Angeles county home following a call to the emergency services on Thursday morning.

He was pronounced dead at 8.25am. In an email, Madsen’s manager, Ron Smith, confirmed his client had died from cardiac arrest.

• Chávez Jr arrested by Ice in Los Angeles

• DHS flagged him as threat but let him re-enter US

• Linked to Sinaloa cartel and faces deportation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has arrested the Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr in California and begun proceedings to deport him, citing cartel affiliations, multiple criminal convictions and an active arrest warrant in Mexico for weapons trafficking and organized crime.

Chávez Jr, 39, the son of the legendary world champion Julio César Chávez Sr, was taken into custody by Ice agents on Tuesday in Studio City, a Los Angeles neighborhood known for celebrity residences. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), he had been living in the US unlawfully and posed a significant threat to public safety.

Israel-based study finds that by 2050 average daily milk production could be reduced by 4% as a result of worsening heat stress

Dairy production will be threatened by the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, a study has found.

Drawing on records from more than 130,000 cows over a period of 12 years, the researchers report that extreme heat reduces dairy cows’ ability to produce milk by 10%.

Madre fire, one of at least a dozen in the state, has burned more than 50,000 acres in San Luis Obispo county

A fast-growing wildfire in central California has become the largest in the state this year, surpassing the size of January’s wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles, as the flames spread in hot, windy conditions.

The Madre fire had exploded to more than 50,000 acres by Thursday morning, after breaking out in San Luis Obispo county on Wednesday afternoon and tearing through grasslands as dry. Extreme heat has raised the fire risk for large portions of the state before the Fourth of July holiday.

Residents formed a safety watch after a neo-Nazi march in Lincoln Heights, but racist incidents still cause turmoil

Despite its proximity to a busy highway, Lincoln Heights’ rolling hills, parks and well-kept lawns are pictures of calm suburban life north of Cincinnati.

Today it’s home to about 3,000 mostly African American people a few miles from Kentucky and the Ohio River, which divided free northern states from the slave-owning south. In the 1920s, Lincoln Heights became one of the first self-governing Black communities north of the Mason-Dixon line.

The detention center visit seemed to represent a landmark in a defining issue since even before his first term: migration

Donald Trump’s tour of the bloodcurdlingly monikered – and hastily constructed – “Alligator Alcatraz” migrants detention center in Florida’s Everglades had the hallmarks of a calculatedly provocative celebration of the dystopian.

Accompanied by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis and a phalanx of journalists, the US president saw only virtue in the vista of mesh fencing, barbed wire and forbidding steel bunk beds.

Combs remains jailed awaiting sentencing as more than 50 civil cases alleging abuse and assault move forward

After two months, the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs came to a close on Wednesday with a mixed verdict. The jury acquitted the 55-year-old music mogul of the most serious charges – racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking – but found him guilty on the two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Still, this verdict marks only one chapter in Combs’s mounting legal battles. Combs, who remains incarcerated at the Metropolitan detention center in Brooklyn, is now awaiting sentencing and faces a growing number of civil lawsuits against him alleging sexual assault and abuse.

American hellfire Pentecostal preacher brought down by sex scandals who tearfully begged for forgiveness on TV

The American televangelist hellfire preacher Jimmy Swaggart, who has died aged 90, fell by the wayside not once but twice with sex workers, spectacularly ending his previously successful TV ministry that screened in 140 countries and was reputed to bring in $150m a year in merchandising sales.

On the first occasion, when he was filmed with a woman at a motel near his church in the suburbs of New Orleans in 1988, he prayed for forgiveness in a tearful TV address. On the second occasion three years later in California when he was caught with a woman in his car, he just told his congregation: “The Lord told me it’s flat out none of your business.”

Justices will hear Idaho and West Virginia appeals on laws barring trans girls from female public school teams

The US supreme court announced on Thursday that it will consider a bid by West Virginia and Idaho to enforce their state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public sector schools.

The decision means the court is prepared to take up another civil rights challenge to Republican-backed restrictions on transgender people.

Album launch party was ending when three people in an SUV began firing on a crowd outside a nightclub

Four people were killed by gunfire and 14 others hospitalized overnight after a drive-by shooting outside a private nightclub event in Chicago, police said on Thursday.

At least three were in critical condition. City news outlets reported that the incident happened after a launch party for the new album by the local rap star Mello Buckzz and that her boyfriend was one of those shot.

Holloman Lake was a haven for wildlife and seemed an ideal campsite. But strange foam around the shoreline turned out to be more than just an oddity – and reveals the alarming way forever chemicals move through ecosystems

For years, Christopher Witt took birdwatchers to Holloman Lake in the Chihuahuan desert off the route 70 highway in New Mexico. By mid-morning the sun would beat down as they huddled in the scant shade of the van. There were no trees other than a collection of salt cedars on the lake’s north shore. But the discomfort didn’t matter when the peregrine falcons appeared, slicing through the sky. “It was hard to leave that place,” says Witt.

The lake – created in 1965 as part of a system of wastewater catchment ponds for Holloman air force base – is an unlikely oasis. Other than small ponds created for livestock it is the only body of water for thousands of square kilometres in an otherwise stark landscape. However, Witt says there was always something slightly weird about the foam that would form around the edge. “But I only saw that stuff once I knew.”

Diplomats and officials say bloc willing to accept 10% tariffs, but talks may go down to wire before Wednesday deadline

• Europe live – latest updates

The EU and US are closing in on a high-level “framework” trade deal that will avert 50% tariffs being imposed on all exports from the bloc next Wednesday, Donald Trump’s self-imposed deadline.

Talks in Washington could go down to the wire, but multiple diplomats and officials said the EU was now willing to accept Trump’s 10% blanket tariffs. However, negotiators will accept this only in exchange for an extension in talks and possible concessions on a 25% car tariff, which is hurting the German car industry, sources said.

Economists anticipated drop, but 8,000 new positions were added in June compared with May, with unemployment rate down to 4.1%

The US economy added 147,000 jobs in June, a sign of continuing strength in the labor market amid Donald Trump’s trade war.

The number of jobs added surpassed expectations, as economists largely anticipated a drop in openings. Instead, 8,000 more jobs were added in June compared with May, according to new job figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The unemployment rate actually decreased to 4.1%, down from 4.2% in May.

Opponents say the decision allowing parents to let their kids opt out of lessons featuring LGBTQ+ themes will hurt the US education system

Kiernan, a 24-year-old transgender person from Colorado, feels drained from dealing with legislation that consistently limits the spaces and freedoms of people like him. Since he transitioned in 2016, it’s been the same – first bathroom bills, then censorship in the education system – routine attacks on LGBTQ+ rights that Kiernan feels have now just become part of living in the US.

Now, in the wake of the Mahmoud v Taylor supreme court ruling, the stigmatization of these communities is likely to worsen.

The president said he would ‘take a look’ at deporting the US citizen amid a political feud, as Republicans make similar remarks about Zohran Mamdani

Elon Musk is an utterly deplorable human being. He has unashamedly flashed an apparent Nazi salute; encouraged rightwing extremists in Germany and elsewhere; falsely claimed there is a “genocide” in South Africa against white farmers; callously celebrated the dismantling of USAID, whose shuttering will lead to the deaths of millions, according to a study published in the Lancet this week; and increased misinformation and empowered extremists on his Twitter/X platform while advancing his sham “I am a free speech absolutist” claims. And so much more.

So the news that Donald Trump “will take a look” at deporting his billionaire former “first buddy” Musk has many smirking and shrugging: “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”