President Trump faces a growing backlash after financial disclosure forms revealed his personal income soared to $2.2 billion in the first year of his second term. That includes $635 million from a licensing agreement for Trump-branded cryptocurrency “meme coins” and $590 million from the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto project. Trump earned another $575 million from his real estate holdings. Trump’s financial disclosure report sprawled over more than 900 pages; by comparison, President Obama’s last such disclosure was just eight pages. Editorial boards, including The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News have criticized Trump’s latest business ventures. On Wednesday, Trump defended his windfall profits.

Reporter: “To critics who say you’re profiting off the presidency, Mr. President?”

President Donald Trump: “Well, you know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market is going up. Everybody’s profiting. If you have a — you have a 401(k)? How has your 401(k) done? It’s about up 85%. Thank you, President Trump.”

Trump was speaking to reporters before boarding the new Air Force One, a Boeing 747 jet donated to the U.S. by the royal family of Qatar. The Air Force expedited a retrofit of the luxury plane, reportedly at a cost of $400 million. Trump plans to keep the jet after leaving office, saying he’ll donate it to his presidential library. Democrats have accused him of receiving a foreign emolument — or bribe — which is prohibited under the Constitution.

The New York Times reports Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Kazakhstan’s president last September in New York, where the pair negotiated a deal giving a U.S. company called Kaz Resources access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten. Ahead of the deal, the Trump administration greenlighted as much as $1.6 billion in federal financing for the project. Howard Lutnick’s sons, Kyle and Brandon Lutnick, as well as Eric and Donald Trump Jr., are all tied directly or indirectly to the company.

A coalition of human rights and antiwar groups are calling on President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lift all U.S. sanctions on Venezuela as the death toll from last week’s devastating twin earthquakes continues to rise and as humanitarian aid advocates warn of a widening health and hunger crisis. In a letter obtained by the publication Common Dreams, the groups write, “As long as sweeping economic sanctions remain in place and Venezuelan assets remain frozen abroad, reconstruction will be unnecessarily delayed, and millions of people will continue to suffer.” The letter has been signed by dozens of organizations, including the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The U.N. Development Program has estimated the earthquakes have caused $6.7 billion in damage. On Wednesday, the death toll had already surpassed 2,000, which is believed to be a vast undercount, with tens of thousands of people still unaccounted for.

Congressmember Joaquin Castro is condemning ICE officials for attempting to deport more people to Venezuela in the aftermath of back-to-back earthquakes. In a social media post, Castro said ICE had tried to deport Venezuelan children and families currently detained in Texas’s Dilley ICE jail. The families were ultimately returned to Dilley after being flown to Arizona. He said, “It is unthinkable to send children and families, who have committed no crimes, into a country plunged into chaos by natural disaster.”

This comes after the Trump administration deported more than 100 immigrants back to Venezuela just hours before the earthquakes. The vast majority now assumed dead.

The United Nations is once again sounding the alarm over escalating violence and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s North Kordofan region. In a statement, the U.N.'s Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said intensifying drone attacks are disrupting access to lifesaving drinking water and electricity, with hundreds of thousands of civilians in El Obeid at risk of paramilitaries with the Rapid Support Forces who have surrounded the city. This comes as a new U.N. human rights report documents how widespread sexual violence in Sudan is being used as a weapon of war. Meanwhile, Sudan's Rapid Support Forces have begun circulating new bank notes in territories it controls, as the value of the Sudanese pound continues to plummet. The currency crisis has exacerbated Sudan’s economic woes. This is Elbushari Ali, an economist in Port Sudan.

Elbushari Ali: “The war has pushed Sudan into a severe economic crisis. Factories are closed in large numbers, farms abandoned, and production continues to contract. With shrinking revenues, the government has little choice but to hike taxes, which only compounds the burden on businesses and households. It’s a vicious cycle that feeds on itself.”

In Ukraine, at least 20 people were killed and dozens of others injured overnight, as Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv. The attacks set buildings across Ukraine’s capital on fire, including six floors of an apartment high-rise that partially collapsed after taking a direct hit. The attacks came as a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found more than 2 million people have been killed or injured since Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022. Russia has taken the larger share, with 1.4 million battlefield casualties and as many as 450,000 deaths.

Palestinians are marking 1,000 days since Israel began its full-scale war on the Gaza Strip. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israel’s scorched-earth campaign has killed over 73,000 Palestinians, with nearly 10,000 missing, most believed to be buried under rubble. Israel has dropped nearly a quarter-million metric tons of explosives across Gaza, equivalent to 16 atomic bombs like the one the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima.

The largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States has voted overwhelmingly to recognize Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and to divest from Palantir Technologies and General Electric Aerospace over their ties to Israel’s military and intelligence services. A measure approved Tuesday by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) also calls on church members to boycott Israeli products and to lobby Congress for an arms embargo against Israel. This is the Rev. Dr. Fahed Abu Akel, a Palestinian American and former moderator of the Presbyterian Church who survived the 1948 “Nakba,” or mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s founding.

Rev. Fahed Abu Akel: “We have been silent on the destruction of most of the schools, universities, hospitals, mosques and churches — you know, one church was Orthodox, Catholic and also Baptist — all of which were done with our American-made weapons and dollars. Siblings in Christ, in the name of the living Christ, we cannot be silent on this matter any longer.”

The world’s oceans experienced their hottest month of June ever. That’s according to the EU’s marine environment monitor, which reports the first six months of 2026 saw marine heat waves affect more than 80% of the global ocean, with hot spots in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic and equatorial Pacific. Forecasters warn a powerful El Niño, paired with record levels of greenhouse gas pollution, could see even more temperature records fall in the coming months.

Spain’s government reports more than 1,000 people died of heat-related causes during last month’s historic heat wave. Previously, officials in France said heat-related fatalities also topped 1,000 in June, while Germany has so far reported over 800 deaths.

Here in the United States, the National Weather Service warns more than 165 million people across midwestern and eastern states are at risk of either “major” or “extreme” heat-related health issues over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, with triple-digit temperatures in many cities. Forecasters warn New York, Philadelphia and other cities could see record highs and their warmest-ever overnight low temperatures.

Meanwhile, the forecast for Washington, D.C., calls for triple-digit heat on the National Mall for Saturday’s Fourth of July celebrations marking the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence. President Trump is planning to speak at 9:45 Eastern time, delaying fireworks celebrations. Trump has advertised the event as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.”

ICE arrests have surged nationwide with more than 10,000 immigrants detained in the last five days alone. That’s according to The New York Times, which reports the White House has demanded an increase in detentions, ordering ICE officials to make at least 2,000 arrests a day.

In related news, a Roman Catholic nun arrested by ICE in Texas has been released from custody. Sister Leticia Ugboaja, who is originally from Nigeria, was walking to Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in McAllen Sunday when she was detained by ICE. Sister Ugboaja’s arrest drew bipartisan anger in Texas, leading to her release.

In Texas, seven more people were sentenced to prison on terrorism charges for attending a protest outside the Prairieland ICE jail last July Fourth, during which fireworks were set off and a police officer was shot and wounded. All but one of the defendants sentenced Wednesday had pleaded guilty. They were handed down sentences ranging from two and 15 years in prison. The final defendant, Ines Soto, was convicted of providing material support to terrorists and other charges, and sentenced to 50 years in prison. This comes just weeks after eight other defendants who were convicted at trial were given unusually harsh, decadeslong prison terms, including former Marine reservist Benjamin Song, who was sentenced to 100 years behind bars. Click here to see our coverage of this case.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says a bipartisan housing bill approved by the Senate last week will become law — with or without President Trump’s signature. Johnson told USA Today Trump has no plans to veto the bill, which he has refused to sign unless lawmakers first pass the SAVE America Act to rewrite U.S. election laws while imposing new voter ID requirements. On Monday, Trump called the housing bill “a yawn.”

President Donald Trump: “Some people say it’s wonderful. To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”

If Trump takes no action, the housing bill could become law automatically on July 10. On Wednesday, the bill’s co-sponsor, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, said she still doesn’t know Trump’s plans.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “One week later, we don’t know if the president is going to sign into law the biggest housing bill in 30 years, a bill that would build more housing, lower costs and, for the first time ever, stop private equity from buying up homes. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is.”

The U.S. House has overwhelmingly approved a resolution that would force the public disclosure of records from members of Congress who have used taxpayer money to settle sexual misconduct accusations. The resolution was sponsored by Republican Congressmember Thomas Massie of Kentucky, with 420 lawmakers voting in favor. Massie’s effort comes after former Congressmembers Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell were forced to resign earlier this year over serious sexual misconduct allegations.

Meanwhile, the writer E. Jean Carroll is calling for the release of $5.8 million paid by Donald Trump into a court-run escrow account, following a jury verdict finding Trump sexually abused her in 1996 and then defamed her, and after the U.S. Supreme Court this week refused to take up Trump’s appeal of the verdict.

The actor, director and activist Danny Glover has revealed he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2023, saying it has slowed his speech, movement and memories. In 1968, Glover took part in the longest campus strike in the nation’s history, when the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front organized to create the first school of ethnic studies in the country at San Francisco State University. He went on to perform in over 250 films, while remaining active in movements to end war and apartheid and in support of working people. Click here to see our many interviews with Danny Glover over the years, including our visit to South Africa, where Danny Glover retrieved President Aristide, the former president of Haiti, and Mildred Aristide, and brought them back on a plane to Haiti. Amy Goodman was on that flight. Democracy Now! documented the entire trip. You can see the story at democracynow.org.