Brazilian president to meet with Trump in effort to avert new US trade tariffs – live

The New York Times (paywall) hears that Florida is in “preliminary” talks with the Trump administration to shut down so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” – the notorious immigration detention center the administration boastfully opened last summer in the Everglades – after finding it might be too expensive to continue operating.

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Citing a federal official, a former ICE official, and a person close to the administration of staunch Trump ally governor Ron DeSantis, the NYT reports that the Department of Homeland Security have concluded that it is too expensive to keep operating the center, which has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Homeland security officials have also come to consider the center ineffective, the federal official told the Times.

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According to the NYT’s source close to the DeSantis administration, the state has been spending more than $1m a day to run the center, which is located in a swampy, isolated area between Miami and Naples, and some private vendors hired by the state to operate it have been struggling to front costs.

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The center has been hugely controversial since it started operating over 10 months ago and quickly earned a reputation for harsh conditions for people held there including alleged human rights abuses and denial of due process.

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Detainees face “harrowing human rights violations”, a shocking report by Amnesty International alleged in December, including exposure to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” rising in some cases to torture.

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As we wait for Lula’s arrival in Washington, at the Tennessee state capitol there are ongoing protests against the legislature’s move to redraw the state’s congressional map, due to pass imminently.

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Demonstrators lined the hallways leading into the chamber at the Tennessee state house in Nashville, chanting “no Jim Crow” ahead of a vote that will carve up the state’s majority-Black and sole Democratic district.

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In a short while, Trump will welcome Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to the White House. We’ll be following along and bringing you the latest lines as their meeting gets under way.

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Following Marco Rubio’s closed-door meeting with Pope Leo XIV, the state department said that the pair discussed the “situation in the Middle East and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere”, according to a readout from spokesperson Tommy Tommy Pigott.

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“The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.

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Susan Collins – the five-term Republican senator from Maine facing a competitive re-election race – has released her first television spot ahead of the midterms. In the ad, she highlights her seniority in the upper chamber, and notes the millions of dollars she has steered towards Maine as chair of the influential Senate appropriations committee, particularly the $6m in federal funding she secured to rebuild a section of a crucial pier in Eastport, Maine that collapsed in 2014.

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The Senate race in Maine has now devolved, earlier than anticipated, into a six-month competition between Collins, a moderate who has served in Congress for almost 30 years, and Graham Platner – a progressive newcomer, oyster farmer and marine veteran. Platner became the de facto Democratic nominee after his primary challenger, two-term governor Janet Mills, suspended her campaign last week.

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Collins departs the chamber at the US Capitol, 24 July 2025.”,”caption”:”Susan Collins departs the chamber at the US Capitol, 24 July 2025.”,”credit”:”Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1778159150000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”09.05 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1778161986000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”09.53 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1778161986000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”09.53 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”09.53″,”title”:”Susan Collins launches first campaign ad ahead of November election”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 7 May 2026 13.03 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Thu 7 May 2026 06.36 EDT”},{“id”:”69fc6d0b8f0875fd2951c7c2″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Secretary of state Marco Rubio is visiting the Vatican today in an effort to mend ties after president Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo.

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Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms.

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“Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.

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Parolin said Washington had requested Rubio’s audience, and that the pope was open to continued dialogue.

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“We cannot ignore the United States,” Parolin said. “Despite some difficulties, they certainly remain a key partner for the Holy See, not least because they play a role in almost every situation we face today.”

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Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

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Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to push through a plan later today that would carve up a majority-Black congressional district.

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The move would reshape the electoral map to the GOP’s advantage as part of president Donald Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.

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The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a US Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, AP reports.

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The court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law.

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The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

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Louisiana has postponed its congressional primary to give time for state lawmakers to craft a new House map.

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Legislation awaiting a final vote in Alabama also would upend the state’s congressional primaries if courts allow the state to change its US House districts. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers urged on by Trump have taken initial steps to add congressional redistricting to their agenda.

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The states are the latest to join an already fierce national redistricting battle. Since Trump encouraged Texas to redraw its US House districts last year, eight states have adopted new congressional districts.

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From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10.

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In other developments:

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  Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was released Wednesday. A federal judge has unsealed an alleged suicide note by Jeffrey Epstein, the first time the document has been made public.

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  The Trump administration has claimed that migration has made Europe an “incubator” for terrorism, according to a recently published report on counter-terrorism strategies. The administration will focus counter-terrorism efforts on drug cartels.

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  Republican politicians in Tennessee released a new congressional voting map that could go into effect before the midterm elections this November. The proposed map would eliminate the state’s only Democratic-controlled district by carving up a majority-Black voting bloc based in Memphis.

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  More information was released on the suspect charged in connection to Monday’s shooting near JD Vance’s motorcade. The Texas man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers near the Washington monument this week was walking along the path of JD Vance’s motorcade before the shooting and made a vulgar remark about the White House after the confrontation, according to a court filing on Wednesday.

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  The FBI’s director, Kash Patel, has allegedly given out customized bottles of bourbon at events, including ones where he is working in a official capacity, according to a report from the Atlantic.

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  Donald Trump will be hosting the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for a visit, a White House source confirmed to the Guardian. Trump and Lula, who was elected in 2023, will discuss “economic and security matters of shared importance”, the source said. The meeting is expected to take place this Thursday.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced today that she has given birth to her second child.

“On May 1st, Viviana aka ‘Vivi’ joined our family, and our hearts instantly exploded with love,” Leavitt said in a post on Instagram.

Vivi is “perfect and healthy” and her big brother is “adjusting to life with his new baby sister”, Leavitt said.

Federal and Florida officials in early talks to shut down ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, after spending over $1m a day to keep it running, NYT reports

The New York Times (paywall) hears that Florida is in “preliminary” talks with the Trump administration to shut down so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” – the notorious immigration detention center the administration boastfully opened last summer in the Everglades – after finding it might be too expensive to continue operating.

Citing a federal official, a former ICE official, and a person close to the administration of staunch Trump ally governor Ron DeSantis, the NYT reports that the Department of Homeland Security have concluded that it is too expensive to keep operating the center, which has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Homeland security officials have also come to consider the center ineffective, the federal official told the Times.

According to the NYT’s source close to the DeSantis administration, the state has been spending more than $1m a day to run the center, which is located in a swampy, isolated area between Miami and Naples, and some private vendors hired by the state to operate it have been struggling to front costs.

The center has been hugely controversial since it started operating over 10 months ago and quickly earned a reputation for harsh conditions for people held there including alleged human rights abuses and denial of due process.

Detainees face “harrowing human rights violations”, a shocking report by Amnesty International alleged in December, including exposure to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” rising in some cases to torture.

An update now from the White House that Brazil’s president arrived at 11:21am ET, per the foreign pool. Lula went through the South Lawn entrance, but the arrival was closed to press.

We’re now waiting for the bilateral meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, which is open press, to get under way.

David Smith

Marco Rubio, the top US diplomat, has stoked speculation about a potential run for president in 2028 by releasing a campaign-style video that articulates a hopeful vision of America.

The minute-long vertical video features images of Rubio, Donald Trump, jets flying over the White House, Americans of different races, former US president Ronald Reagan, and the Stars and Stripes being hoisted against a blue sky.

The soundtrack is drawn from a White House press briefing earlier this week in which the US secretary of state stood in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave.

A reporter asked Rubio: “I’ve got to ask you, what is your hope for America at a time such as this?”

The secretary replied: “My hope for America is what it’s always been. I think it’s the hope I hope we all share. We want it to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything, where you’re not limited by the circumstances of your birth, by the color of your skin, by your ethnicity, but frankly, it’s a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential.

The comments, notable for striking a more optimistic tone than Trump or Vice-President JD Vance, went viral on social media with some users framing it as the unofficial start of Rubio’s White House campaign.

Laura Loomer, a rightwing activist close to the president, tweeted: “Wow! This looks like it could be a launch video for a Presidential campaign. Amazing production quality and vibes.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur who headed Trump’s controversial government efficiency drive last year, posted a clip of Rubio’s briefing remarks on his X social media platform without comment. Rob Schneider, an actor and comedian, replied: “THIS should be the NEXT President of these United States.”

Even some Trump sceptics were impressed. Ashish Jha, a doctor and academic who served as the White House Covid-19 response coordinator under Joe Biden, tweeted: “An extraordinary response from @SecRubio. This should be everyone’s hope and vision for America.”

Read the full report:

George Chidi

As the Tennessee House began deliberating on a vote to eliminate its sole Democratic district, House Speaker Cameron Sexton ordered protesters to be cleared from the east side of the gallery.

“This is what history is going to bear witness to in this moment,” said state Representative Justin Jones, a Democrat from Nashville.

Democrats have been offering amendment after amendment trying to alter or slow the vote and highlighting what they describe as a rushed process in conflict with state law and the

“This is being done because of race,” said Jason Powell, another Democratic legislator from Nashville. “It’s being done to divide a city.”

The redistricting cracks Memphis into three congressional districts, each of which has a Republican-leaning voting majority.

Protests at Tennessee state capitol amid Republican efforts to redraw congressional map

As we wait for Lula’s arrival in Washington, at the Tennessee state capitol there are ongoing protests against the legislature’s move to redraw the state’s congressional map, due to pass imminently.

Demonstrators lined the hallways leading into the chamber at the Tennessee state house in Nashville, chanting “no Jim Crow” ahead of a vote that will carve up the state’s majority-Black and sole Democratic district.

Brazilian president to meet with Trump at the White House

In a short while, Trump will welcome Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to the White House. We’ll be following along and bringing you the latest lines as their meeting gets under way.

A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog. This includes the news that Tehran is, at most, reviewing the US’s peace proposal and considering its response via Pakistani mediators, according to state media.

This comes after Donald Trump proclaimed in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Iran wants to make a deal “very badly” and negotiations were “very good”.

State department says Rubio meeting with Pope Leo XIV ‘underscored strong relationship’ with Vatican

Following Marco Rubio’s closed-door meeting with Pope Leo XIV, the state department said that the pair discussed the “situation in the Middle East and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere”, according to a readout from spokesperson Tommy Tommy Pigott.

“The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.

Richard Luscombe

Susan Collins also revealed a decades-old medical condition she said affects her appearance, but not her ability to do her job.

Collins, 73, told News Center Maine, an NBC affiliate, this week that she has a benign essential tremor she treats with medication, which sometimes causes her hands, arms and head to tremble.

“I have had it for the entire time that I have served in the United States Senate,” Collins told the outlet, adding that it was an “extremely common” condition. “It has absolutely no impact on my ability to do my job or on how I feel each day,” she said.

The health of Collins – first elected to the US Senate in 1996, and the longest-serving Republican woman in the chamber – has come under recent scrutiny.

The revelation about her medical diagnosis, and assurance that it does not affect her work, is likely to be seen as an attempt to shore up her support. She said she had not missed a vote in three decades as a US senator, and was confident in her ability to serve another six-year term.

“If you talk to anybody in Washington, they will tell you that I am the hardest-working person that they have ever worked with,” Collins said. Her voting record was “pretty good evidence of the fact that I am blessed with great health”, she suggested. “It’s inconvenient at times, but that’s all.”

Read the full report here:

Susan Collins launches first campaign ad ahead of November election

Susan Collins – the five-term Republican senator from Maine facing a competitive re-election race – has released her first television spot ahead of the midterms. In the ad, she highlights her seniority in the upper chamber, and notes the millions of dollars she has steered towards Maine as chair of the influential Senate appropriations committee, particularly the $6m in federal funding she secured to rebuild a section of a crucial pier in Eastport, Maine that collapsed in 2014.

The Senate race in Maine has now devolved, earlier than anticipated, into a six-month competition between Collins, a moderate who has served in Congress for almost 30 years, and Graham Platner – a progressive newcomer, oyster farmer and marine veteran. Platner became the de facto Democratic nominee after his primary challenger, two-term governor Janet Mills, suspended her campaign last week.

On social media, Donald Trump shared a picture of the 15-foot golden statue of himself at the his golf course in Doral, Florida.

“The Real Deal – GOLD – At Doral in Miami. Put there by great American Patriots!!!” Trump wrote while sharing a picture of the monument from the Daily Telegraph.

Nicknamed “Don Colossus”, the statue is on the golf course at the president’s club just outside of Miami.

Jakub Krupa

Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio has now left the Vatican after meeting Pope Leo after some two hours there.

He met initially with the pontiff before sitting down with senior Vatican officials, including top diplomat Italian cardinal Pietro Parolin, Reuters reported.

The Vatican and the US state department did not provide any immediate details about the talks, but we’ll bring you the latest if/when we get any more information.

Donald Trump is in Washington today. As we noted earlier, he’ll welcome President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil to the White House for a bilateral meeting at 11am ET. That will be open to the press and we’ll bring you the latest lines as it gets under way. A White House official told the Guardian that the two leaders will discuss “economic and security matters of shared importance.”

It’s worth noting that Lula will seek a fourth, nonconsecutive term in Brazil’s upcoming October elections, where he will face off against Flávio Bolsanaro – his imprisoned predecessor’s son.

Dharna Noor

The billions in profits big oil is reaping due to the Iran war may stymie the energy transition, experts and advocates fear, incentivizing oil and gas expansion and boosting the sector’s funds for political lobbying.

“Windfall profits from Trump’s war will allow big oil to build a wall of money around its Trump-era political victories,” said Lukas Shankar-Ross, a deputy director at green group Friends of the Earth.

The deadly conflict in Iran has created a historic energy shock due to attacks on fossil fuel facilities and the blockage of the crucial trade vessel the strait of Hormuz. Amid the chaos, energy prices – and oil companies’ earnings – have soared.

ConocoPhillips last week reported $2.3bn in profits for the first three months of 2026, up 84% from before the war began. Meanwhile, top petroleum refiner Valero Energy announced quarterly profits of $1.2bn, beating estimates. Liberty Energy, founded and formerly run by Donald Trump’s energy secretary Chris Wright, saw quarterly earnings of $10m, up 32% from before the war began. And BP said it had seen “exceptional” performance, more than doubling its profits during the year’s first quarter.

The oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil both saw their profits drop during the first three months of 2026, executives reported in earnings calls. Yet in short order, that trajectory will shift, analysts say. Consensus estimates shows ExxonMobil’s second-quarter earnings will more than double from a year ago, while Chevron profits are expected to increase by 56% for the year.

As oil companies rake in billions, Americans are suffering at the pump. On Wednesday, the US average price of gasoline soared to $4.52 per gallon, the highest price since July 2022.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visits the White House on Thursday, aiming to revive what US president Donald Trump last year called their “excellent chemistry,” avoid new tariffs, and show a willingness to negotiate deals on critical minerals and organized crime, three people close to the Brazilian president told Reuters.

“We don’t know if the visit will help,” one Brazilian official involved in arranging the meeting told Reuters. “But it’s more likely to help than doing nothing.“

Last year, Trump hit Brazilian products with 50% tariffs, among the highest on any US imports, accusing the country of promoting a witch-hunt against far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was later convicted for attempting to overthrow democracy.

Rubio arrives for audience with Pope Leo to ease tensions after Trump’s criticism over Iran

Secretary of state Marco Rubio is visiting the Vatican today in an effort to mend ties after president Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo.

Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms.

“Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.

Parolin said Washington had requested Rubio’s audience, and that the pope was open to continued dialogue.

“We cannot ignore the United States,” Parolin said. “Despite some difficulties, they certainly remain a key partner for the Holy See, not least because they play a role in almost every situation we face today.”

Tennessee poised to vote today on new US House map

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to push through a plan later today that would carve up a majority-Black congressional district.

The move would reshape the electoral map to the GOP’s advantage as part of president Donald Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.

The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a US Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, AP reports.

The court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law.

The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

Louisiana has postponed its congressional primary to give time for state lawmakers to craft a new House map.

Legislation awaiting a final vote in Alabama also would upend the state’s congressional primaries if courts allow the state to change its US House districts. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers urged on by Trump have taken initial steps to add congressional redistricting to their agenda.

The states are the latest to join an already fierce national redistricting battle. Since Trump encouraged Texas to redraw its US House districts last year, eight states have adopted new congressional districts.

From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10.

In other developments:

• Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was released Wednesday. A federal judge has unsealed an alleged suicide note by Jeffrey Epstein, the first time the document has been made public.

• The Trump administration has claimed that migration has made Europe an “incubator” for terrorism, according to a recently published report on counter-terrorism strategies. The administration will focus counter-terrorism efforts on drug cartels.

• Republican politicians in Tennessee released a new congressional voting map that could go into effect before the midterm elections this November. The proposed map would eliminate the state’s only Democratic-controlled district by carving up a majority-Black voting bloc based in Memphis.

• More information was released on the suspect charged in connection to Monday’s shooting near JD Vance’s motorcade. The Texas man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers near the Washington monument this week was walking along the path of JD Vance’s motorcade before the shooting and made a vulgar remark about the White House after the confrontation, according to a court filing on Wednesday.

• The FBI’s director, Kash Patel, has allegedly given out customized bottles of bourbon at events, including ones where he is working in a official capacity, according to a report from the Atlantic.

• Donald Trump will be hosting the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for a visit, a White House source confirmed to the Guardian. Trump and Lula, who was elected in 2023, will discuss “economic and security matters of shared importance”, the source said. The meeting is expected to take place this Thursday.