LONDON – Novak Djokovic added another record to his name by reaching Wimbledon’s third round for a 19th time with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-0 win over Dan Evans on Centre Court on Wednesday.
It was Djokovic’s 99th match win at Wimbledon overall, and the 19 third-round appearances put him one ahead of Roger Federer for most by any man in the Open Era.
It’s hardly the most prestigious record for Djokovic, whose 24 Grand Slam titles — including seven at Wimbledon — are the most by a male player. But he could at least use it to poke fun at his new, and much younger, main rivals.
“Nineteen times, that’s a great stat,” said the 38-year-old Djokovic. “That’s probably almost as much as Sinner and Alcaraz have years in their lives.”
Well, not quite.
Carlos Alcaraz, who beat Djokovic in the last two Wimbledon finals, is 22, while No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner — who was playing later on Centre Court — is 23.
The growing rivalry between Sinner and Alcaraz — especially in the wake of their five-set final at the French Open last month — has helped tennis move on from the era of the Big Three, where Djokovic is the last man standing after Federer and Rafael Nadal retired.
But Djokovic is too focused on proving he can still win another Slam to sit back and reflect on everything he has accomplished at Wimbledon.
“I don’t pause to reflect, to be honest. I don’t have time,” Djokovic said in an on-court interview. “I would like to. But I think that’s going to come probably when I set the racket aside and then sip margarita on the beach with Federer and Nadal and just reflect on our rivalry and everything.”
Against Evans, Djokovic failed to convert his first nine break points in the first set. But once he got the breakthrough for a 5-3 lead — raising both arms in the air as if to say “finally” — he went five-for-six on break points the rest of the way.
“You have these kinds of days where everything goes your way,” said Djokovic, who didn’t face a break point of his own until the final game. “Everything flows.”
What else happened Thursday at Wimbledon?
No. 7-seeded Mirra Andreeva and No. 10 Emma Navarro both advanced in straight sets. The 18-year-old Andreeva earned a 6-1, 7-6 (4) win over Lucia Bronzetti of Italy, and Navarro cruised past Veronika Kudermetova 6-1, 6-2. No. 11 Elena Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, beat Maria Sakkari 6-3, 6-1.
In the men’s draw, No. 11 Alex de Minaur ousted 115th-ranked Arthur Cazaux 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 and 19th-seeded Gregor Dimitrov outlasted Corentin Moutet 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.
Who plays Friday at the All England Club?
Alcaraz, the two-time defending champion, faces 35-year-old Jan-Lennard Struff on Centre Court, before No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka faces British home favorite Emma Raducanu in the late match. Australian Open champion Madison Keys faces Laura Siegemund on No. 2 Court.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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NEW YORK – Nissan is recalling more than 480,000 of its vehicles across the U.S. and Canada due to potential manufacturing defects that could cause engine failure.
The recall covers certain Nissan Rogues between 2021-2024 model years and 2019-2020 Altimas — as well as a number of 2019-2022 Infiniti QX50s and 2022 Infiniti QX55s sold under the automaker’s luxury brand, according to Nissan and documents published by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week.
The vehicles impacted carry specific “VC-Turbo” engines that may have manufacturing defects in their bearings, the NHTSA’s recall report notes. This may cause engine damage and possibly lead to engine failure while driving, the regulator warns — increasing crash risks.
Engine bearing failures “are not typically instantaneous and tend to progress over time,” the NHTSA’s recall report notes. That means effected drivers may see multiple warning signs to look out for — including abnormal noises or malfunction indicator lights.
In the U.S., 443,899 vehicles are covered in this recall, per NHTSA documents. And in Canada, 37,837 are affected, a Nissan spokesperson confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday.
As a remedy, the NHSTA’s recall report notes, Nissan and Infiniti dealers will inspect the engine pan of these-now recalled cars — and repair or replace the engine if necessary. The recall covers vehicles with either 3-cylinder 1.5L or 4-cylinder 2.0L VC-Turbo engines. Potential repairs — which will be performed free of charge — will depend on the engine and whether or not debris is detected during the inspection.
In an emailed statement, Nissan said it initiated this recall as part of its “ongoing commitment to customer safety.” And in late August, the company added, notification letters will be mailed out to affected owners “with instructions to bring their vehicle to a Nissan dealer or INFINITI retailer for inspection and repair if necessary.”
In the meantime, drivers can also confirm if their specific vehicle is included in this recall and find more information using the NHTSA site or Nissan’s recall lookup.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Below is a breakdown of activities planned for July.
Families and kids:
July 5: Five-Mile Hike at Phil Hardberger Park
The park is hosting its monthly five-mile hike around the park’s perimeter trails. Depending on the group size, the hike may take up to two hours. For more information and to register, click here.
July 10: Nature Night Hike at Walker Ranch Park
Trained guides will lead groups on paved and natural trails to see the sights and sounds of the park. The public is encouraged to bring a flashlight or headlamp. For more information and to register, click here. As of publication, eight open spots remain.
July 12: San Antonio Parks & Recreation Showcase at Lady Bird Johnson Park
The public is invited to join the San Antonio Parks & Recreation team in celebrating National Park and Recreation Month to learn about year-round programming options.
July 19: Silent Book Club Festival at Rosedale Park pavilions
Join the San Antonio Silent Book Club for its second anniversary. Vendors, a silent reading hour and a sound bath are planned for the event at Rosedale Park’s pavilions.
July 26: Fourth Saturday Nature Walk at Phil Hardberger Park
Take some time to relax and flex your poetry skills on a nature walk at the park. The walk will take the public off the trail, so be sure to wear adequate clothing and bring repellent. Guests are also encouraged to bring a pen and paper to write down their thoughts. For more information, click here.
Adults over 18 years old:
Tuesdays and Thursdays: Senior Swim at Kingsborough Park Pool
The hour-long class is encouraged for those 60 and up. The class will continue on the selected days through Aug. 7. For more information, click here. As of publication, 23 open spots remain.
July 3: Fourth of July BBQ at the Gill Community Center
Enjoy classic BBQ staples ahead of the July 4 holiday. The public must sign up to attend. For more information, click here.
July 18: Murder Mystery Party at Lions Field Adult & Senior Center
Sign up is required to play a character or attend. Lunch will be provided. For more information, click here. As of publication, 39 open spots remain.
July 22: All American Pie Contest at Commanders House Park
The public is invited to bring a homemade pie to compete in this free contest. Ice cream will also be provided. For more information, click here.
Read more:
Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.
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As the most-watched Netflix series, Squid Game had big shoes to fill as it came back with season 3. It rose up to the challenge.
The new episodes amassed 60.1 million views since the drop, with the series becoming the first to debut at number 1 in all countries where the streaming service is available. It’s the first Netflix show to achieve that.
Needless to say, fans were quick to catch up with Gi-hun and the other players after the failed rebellion in season 2. But is this really the end of the series? Or is there more to come? Here’s what we know so far.
Squid Game Season 4 Release Date
Unfortunately, Squid Game season 4 isn’t happening. It was announced a while back that the third installment will also be the show’s last. With Gi-hun’s story concluded, it doesn’t look like creator Hwang Dong-hyuk changed his mind.
That said, fans of the series still have something to look forward to. An English spin-off series is possibly in the works, with none other than Davind Fincher attached. Netflix hasn’t officially confirmed this news. Even so, given that Squid Game is the biggest show in the world, this could be only the beginning.
Squid Game Cast
Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun
Lee Byung-hun as Hwang In-ho
Choi Seung-hyun as Choi Su-bong / “Thanos”
Wi Ha-joon as Hwang Jun-ho
Jung Ho-yeon as Kang Sae-byeok
Im Si-wan as Lee Myung-gi
Lee Jin-wook as Park Gyeong-seok
What Could Happen in the Squid Game Spin-off?
Squid Game became a sensation thanks to its thrilling premise and biting social commentary.
The South Korean drama follows a group of desperate people invited to join a series of children’s games for a chance to win a ridiculous sum of money.
However, there’s a twist. Losing a game means being eliminated, literally. In order to forge through the competition, the contestants risk their lives and watch others die brutally. With such dire stakes, alliances form and moral boundaries are continually tested.
At the centre of the action is Seong Gi-hun, a struggling father. After winning the big prize in season 1, he sets off to destroy the games. Confronting the darkest aspects of human nature will do that to a person. Whether or not he manages to, we won’t spoil the ending. But as season 3 comes to a close, we can confirm that viewers get to learn Gi-hun’s fate.
The series finale also teases an American version of the games (with a huge celebrity cameo to boot!), which is likely what the spin-off will focus on. While not much is known about the plot, there’s a good chance it will follow similar beats as the original, games and gore included. With no Squid Game season 4 on the horizon, it will have to do.
The latest rumours suggest that the American spin-off might start production in December 2025. It may reach streaming sometime in late 2026 or in 2027.
Are There Other Shows Like Squid Game?
Until the spin-off series arrives, you might want something to tie you over. You can check out reality series Squid Game: The Challenge, which sees contestants compete for a large cash prize (though the real-life stakes are much less deadly).
For similar dramas, you can try Alice in Borderland, All of Us Are Dead, 3%, The 8 Show, and The Purge.
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While making their new album, the gentlemen of Zeds Dead put a whiteboard in the studio to jot ideas on while they worked, a go-to move for anyone in a creative swirl. What was unique about their notes however, is that they ultimately wrote just one: “F–k s–t up.”
“That was the only thing on the board,” says the duo’s Dylan Mamid.
However concise, the instruction contained the project’s foundational approach — “to sound like, kind of not clean,” says other half Zachary Rapp-Rovan, “just very glitchy and messed with, but cohesive, but kind of chaotic.”
You’re forgiven if these guidelines sound confusing to you. But with the Zeds Dead skillset, honed over a 16-year career that contains a debut LP, multiple mixtapes, hundreds of singles and remixes and countless shows, the duo made its excellent second album, Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness. Released in March, the 14-track project does sound simultaneously disorderly and controlled, at once bursting at the seams and laced with moments of contemplative chill.
Meeting with Billboard at a studio in L.A., Mamid and Rapp-Rovan are both relaxed and thoughtful as they take a break from prepping a live show to talk about life, music and the evolution of a dubstep genre that they’re fairly sure they don’t actually exist within.
“We’re never really going for a genre,” says Rapp-Rovan. “Dubstep and all these bass genres are just kind of things we dabble in. We have our fans, more so than being a genre-affiliated artist.”
Roughly 40,000 of these fans are trekking to Red Rocks this week for Dead Rocks, Zeds Dead’s standing engagement at the Colorado amphitheater that’s happened every summer since 2014. (Although the 2020 event was cancelled due to the pandemic.) Today (July 3) is the second of Dead Rocks 2025’s two-night run, with the duo headlining each evening after a supporting lineup featuring 10 bass and bass-adjacent artists. (Zeds Dead will also play three shows in Denver on July 4 — two sets at Mission Ballroom and a preceding “Backyard Jamboree” at Civic Center Park where fans can enjoy music and a hot dog eating contest.)
Each Dead Rocks is surely special, but this year is especially so given that it’s the first time since 2016 that the duo — who’s built a sprawling fanbase with its hard, experimental and often heady bass music — has come to Dead Rocks with a new album to play. If some of it does sound familiar, however, you aren’t losing your mind.
“A lot of the things that ended up on the album started with our other pieces of music,” says Rapp-Rovan. “It almost became remixing something of ours again and again, until there would be different pieces from these old songs that ended up in the new ones.” In a process one could indeed reasonably call “f–king s–t up” the pair remixed this older material “until it was pretty far from the original idea.”
This process started two years ago, when the two “cleared the runway,” as Mamid puts it, of their other projects so they could focus on an LP. Often producing while on the road, the pair recorded in studios from Boise to San Francisco to Toronto to Los Angeles, then in early 2024 rented a work/live space in Joshua Tree, Calif. This remote desert location proves popular among musicians — Mamid says “isolation was the main draw.”
Along the way, they landed on a concept both beyond and complimentary to cohesive chaos. Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness isn’t just a vibey mouthful of a title, but the name for the cosmic TV/radio station the album is meant to function as. As such, the project weaves in bits of cultural ephemera familiar to most ’80s and ’90s babies (both of the guys made their debut on Earth in ’88), including dialogue from Scarface (“what a bunch of f–kin a–holes” Al Pacino’s Tony Montana declares on “Bad Guy”), a vintage news report on the Big Bang and The NeverEnding Story, the 1984 kids fantasy film that bent the brains of a generation. (“Why is it so dark?” the movie’s hero Bastian asks in the first words heard on the album. “In the beginning,” The Childlike Empress responds, “it is always dark.”)
In this way, the album collapses the space-time continuum, functioning in the same way as one’s own brain by serving up seemingly random and disparate memories at once. The late Duke Ellington is heard in a 1965 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on “A Million Dreams,” a sample that “we almost had to cut,” says Rapp-Rovan. “That would have sucked, because we really felt like that was an important piece of the album.” The dialogue was fortunately cleared at the last minute after the song found its way to Ellington’s grandson, who liked it.
Meanwhile, George and Ira Gershwin are credited on “One of These Mornings,” which features a sample of Ella Fitzgerald singing “Summertime” from 1959’s Porgy & Bess. All of these bits and bobs live inside productions that balance bass wobble with kaleidoscopic synths with deep emotion and big ideas. The album’s cover, a picture of rainbow that Rapp-Rovan took in the middle of the night while on a 2017 mid-summer trip to Iceland, effectively summarizes the vibe in total.
On its surface, the album is a contribution to the bass/dubstep scene in which Zeds Dead has long existed. However, the reality of where they live in the spectrum of electronic music is arguably more nuanced. When the duo broke through in 2009, American and North American style dubstep was beginning its moment of ubiquity, as artists like Skrillex and Excison delivered sharp, heavy iterations of the U.K.-born sound and countless DJs became a drop jockeys trying to out-pummel the last.
“With dubstep, one of the things that happened was that somebody would come with a new sound that was even harder,” says Rapp-Rovan.
“There was a lot of one-upping, for sure,” says Mamid.
“Then suddenly, you’d notice that people wanted that,” says Rapp-Rovan. “More artists would be like, ‘Oh, this is what people want, so I’m going to make that,’ and then the music becomes homogeneous… And sometimes you can get addicted to the instant gratification in dance music — when you’re playing other people’s records, especially — and it’s like, ‘I can always play this one and people are gonna go crazy.”
“There have definitely been a lot of times when we’d be playing after somebody who was doing stuff that was really, really hard,” he continues. “And we’d be like, ‘I don’t want to try to one-up this guy,’ so we would just kind of bring it back down for a while and suffer… But if we took it down for a while, it would make songs that aren’t as crazy more impactful.”
Whatever they’re doing works. Over 15 years, the duo has been a more or less ubiquitous presence on the North American circuit and Dead Rocks has sold out every year for a decade. Between 2021 and 2024, it grossed $4.7 million and sold 76,300 tickets, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. The two agree that touring so extensively over the years and “trying really hard and putting a lot of effort into our shows,” says Rapp-Rovan, has created a diehard fanbase, among which it’s common for people to have seen dozens of shows over the years.
“We’ve managed to build this incredibly loyal fanbase that cares what we do,” says Mamid. “They’ll follow us to shows, especially in North America. That’s been really great for us, and it’s allowed us to exist outside of the trends of the moment.”
As such, at least for the time being, they don’t see a reason to tour outside North America. “We sort of choose not to,” says Rapp-Rovan. “We consistently get a lot of offers in North America and we don’t want to be flying all around.”
“We’ve been doing this for 15 years, and we hit it pretty hard earlier in our career, and we’re getting older,” says Mamid, who also has other business to tend to as he recently bought a house and got engaged. And even eschewing long haul flights, the two have been plenty busy. Their 2025 shows thusfar have included Coachella, Electric Forest and many standalone sets, with shows at Elements, North Coast, Austin City Limits and Hulaween on the calendar through November — and a lot more f–king s–t up to do in preparation.
“I feel like that’s one of the reasons that our album took so long, because there’s so much energy put into the shows,” says Rapp-Rovan. “Each of those Red Rocks events over the years, that’s like an album’s worth of work.”
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For many residents of west Altadena, it’s hard to shake the feeling that they were victimized twice by the January firestorm that swept into their neighborhood.
Not only were massive swaths of their neighborhoods destroyed in the blaze, but hundreds were forced to flee in dangerous conditions because evacuation alerts came hours after smoke and flames threatened their community. Many believe the delayed alerts in west Altadena were a key reason all but one of the Eaton fire’s 18 deaths were there.
Revelations about the delay, made by The Times in January, sparked outrage toward Los Angeles County officials, who were tasked with issuing evacuation alerts, and an ongoing independent investigation into what went wrong.
Despite continued community anger and frustration, no one has yet filed suit against the county for the lapse.
Almost a dozen residents told The Times that they were, at one point, considering a legal case against the county over its delayed evacuation alerts, but as the six-month deadline to file such a claim rapidly approached, more and more people abandoned the idea.
Several decided after talking to lawyers they couldn’t risk jeopardizing any settlement with Southern California Edison, which hundreds of residents already have sued, alleging the utility started the fire and should be held liable — potentially to the tune of $24 billion to $45 billion.
Others worried that legal hurdles could make a court battle unwinnable. Many, such as Heather Morrow, simply realized they didn’t have the time or wherewithal to keep going, as much as they supported the effort.
Morrow was planning on filing a legal claim against the county — in the hopes that an attorney might eventually take up the cause — but after a few weeks of consideration, she decided she couldn’t devote that much time to another exhausting effort, on top of the complicated rebuilding process and an art show she’s putting on that honors Altadena’s humanity.
Heather C. Morrow at the Altadena property where her home burned.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“I would still like answers,” Morrow, 55, said. “I just decided that it’s not an effort that I have time to do. … I just decided I’d switch my energy more to a positive thing.”
The decision has left some in an unsettling state of limbo. They fear they can’t rebuild or move forward without transparency and assurances that mistakes won’t be repeated. Others simply want answers from Los Angeles County officials about why or how their section of town was left behind, so they can process their trauma or prepare for the future.
County officials confirmed this week that no lawsuits have been filed against the county related to the Eaton fire. It wasn’t immediately clear whether any claims — a precursor to a lawsuit — had been filed.
Morrow said she does worry that residents may never understand what went wrong the night of Eaton fire without pressure from a legal case.
“I don’t know that there will be an answer,” Morrow said. “Hopefully they’ll get there, hopefully they’ll figure out that they need to tell the community what happened. … If the truth doesn’t come out, there’s no lesson to be learned.”
Los Angeles County officials have repeatedly declined to share information or answer questions about what happened with the delayed evacuation alerts in west Altadena on Jan. 7 and 8, citing an ongoing, independent investigation into the fire’s evacuation process by disaster management firm McChrystal Group.
In a statement this week, the county’s Coordinated Joint Information Center said residents “deserve an answer to what happened with evacuations in West Altadena.” However, the statement said county officials had no timeline when that would come. Officials said they would not speculate on what the independent investigation would find, or what might be included in McChrystal Group’s next update, which is scheduled for late July.
The company’s last report simply shared the status of the investigation, without any substantive information. McChrystal Group did not respond to questions from The Times about ts next report.
An electronic evacuation order was not issued for residents west of North Lake Avenue, the town’s east-west divider, until about 3:30 a.m. Jan. 8, nearly nine hours after the Eaton fire broke out and several hours after smoke and flames began to threaten the area. Some neighborhoods in southwest Altadena weren’t ordered to evacuate until almost 6 a.m. People east of North Lake, closer to the fire’s origin, received their first evacuation alert about 6:40 p.m. Jan. 7, according to a review by The Times.
The disparity was particularly concerning because west Altadena was known as an enclave for Black homeownership, and remains home to a much more diverse population compared with neighborhoods east of North Lake.
Heather C. Morrow, a photographer who lost her Altadena home in the Eaton fire, has documented fire damage in her neighborhood.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
To many, it felt like an obvious case for a lawsuit. Not only did their electronic evacuation alerts come hours after the area became unsafe, but many residents reported seeing no emergency personnel in the area at the time they ended up evacuating.
“I didn’t hear any fire engines,” Morrow said. “They could have gone through the streets doing a megaphone to evacuate. If the system’s failing, there’s other ways to notify people. … I don’t understand why there was no notice.”
But as the coalition of west Altadenans looked further into pursuing a lawsuit against their local government, the more challenging it seemed.
No attorney agreed to take on their plight, and several lawyers advised residents that such a case could potentially fracture payouts from Edison, if the utility tries to deflect liability to the county.
Experts said suing a government entity is much more challenging than suing a private company. There also appears to be no precedent in California for a case successfully proving liability related to delayed or failed evacuation alerts.
But the most glaring hurdle would be getting around the broad immunity that government bodies in California have from failing to provide fire protection or evacuation alerts, said Neama Rahmani, president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm in Los Angeles, which is handling Eaton fire cases against Edison.
“Failing to provide fire protection or insufficient fire protection or firefighting services — they are absolutely immune from liability on that basis,” Rahmani said. “These cases are very, very, very difficult.”
Rahmani said any attorney who agreed to take such a case would be giving residents “false hope,” as he expects most judges would dismiss such a case.
It also would be hard to attribute harm or damages specifically from the county’s failure for evacuation alerts, said David Levine, a professor of law at UC San Francisco.
“It’s going to be really hard to separate out the category of damage that you could lay at the feet of the L.A. County officials,” Levine said.
Given all the challenges of such a case, Rahmani and Levine said they thought the circumstances were better suited for the public sphere, actions such as contacting elected officials and lobbying the county’s Board of Supervisors.
“The remedies are in the political realm, not the legal realm,” Levine said. “That’s probably a far better route if you’re really looking for prevention in the future, accountability — far better than litigation, because in this instance there’s just so many hurdles.”
The county has said it is committed to learning from what happened in Altadena.
“We will also spare no effort in addressing any findings found [through] the multiple after-action reviews that the county is currently engaged in and cooperating with,” it said in a statement. “These processes are deliberative, thorough, and intended to bring substantive change to how we serve our residents.”
But many residents question whether the McChrystal report will shine a light on what exactly went wrong or county officials will ever accept full responsibility for their mistakes.
One woman who was determined to file a claim against the county over the failed evacuation alerts decided at the last minute she didn’t want to risk compromising her case against Edison after a lengthy discussion with her attorney.
The woman, who requested anonymity for fear she could be subpoenaed in a future lawsuit, said she wanted to hold government accountable. In the end though, she said she faced an impossible choice: “Do you want accountability, or do you want money? … Do you want to be made financially whole? Or do you want to live in a county that has learned from its mistakes and acknowledged its role in harming you?”
Mark Douglas was among the first people calling out the county’s missteps during the evacuation, starting an Instagram page with his partner called Altadena West of Lake, where they continue to advocate for accountability and call on the county and local leaders to better protect and respond to the needs of Altadena. He said he wasn’t against the idea of a lawsuit against the county — and that he’d hear out any lawyer if one took the case — but he’s decided to focus his time on mounting public pressure, raising awareness about all that went wrong.
“All we want is answers,” said Douglas, who lost his west Altadena home to the fire. “There was no coordinated effort to warn people, to knock on doors, to go up and down the street with sirens … to me that is the bar for failure. … There was just this feeling that the whole town was left to burn, especially west Altadena.”
Morrow said she’s found some new peace, focusing on her photography show that details the aftermath of the Eaton fire. The exhibit, called “Bearing Witness: Fragments of Humanity,” is set to debut July 12 at the Artists & Makers Studios in San Gabriel.
“There was humanity here and now there’s just these fragments,” Morrow said. “We’ve got to continue to move on though. We can’t live in that misery — or the anger.”
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While there were no changes made to the legislative text of President Donald Trump’s megabill after it came back from the Senate, some House Republican holdouts said the president made promises to get their votes.
After meeting with House Republicans at the White House on Wednesday and working the phones through the night and into the early morning Thursday, the president addressed members’ unease in real-time, Speaker Mike Johnson observed, “making sure that everyone’s concerns are addressed and their questions are answered.”
South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said Trump provided holdouts “assurances” that changes would be made to “getting permits” related to wind and solar tax credits.
“Wind and solar needs to be — we would have cut those out Day 1. We couldn’t do that,” Norman said on CNBC Thursday.
Rep. Ralph Norman speaks to reporters following his White House meeting as Republicans work to push President Donald Trump’s signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts across the finish line in Washington, July 2, 2025.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
“And, you know, up until late in the night, we were negotiating, you know, things that could change with, you know, the tax credits, which all were put in by Joe Biden, which needed to be extinguished,” Norman said.
Norman also signaled that Trump could use executive power to “make the bill better.”
But during negotiations this week, the lawmakers were unable to extract any changes to the bill.
Nevertheless, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, an outspoken conservative firebrand who led the public pushback against the bill, argued that the Freedom Caucus “has successfully delivered substantive wins” — before adding, “There may be a few more yet.”
“The real story of the OBBB is reforming Medicaid to require work & to return spending to pre-COVID levels, saving over $1 Trillion,” Roy posted on X. “A modest but important reform that would not have happened if the @freedomcaucus had not fought for it.”
Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde said he “fought” to improve the megabill — hoping to include an amendment to remove taxes on firearms — that the Senate ultimately stripped out.
“I also had the opportunity to discuss this critical matter directly with President Trump at the White House. I look forward to working with him and his Administration to further restore our 2A rights. Stay tuned,” Clyde said.
While the firearms tax remains in the bill, Clyde said he ultimately planned to vote in favor of the package “because I support fulfilling President Trump’s America First agenda and the promises we made to the country.”
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President Donald Trump is preparing for back-to-back phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a high-stakes diplomatic push to end the ongoing war in Ukraine. The moves came after the U.S. paused military aid to Ukraine, a decision that drew sharp criticism from both American and European officials.
Trump’s call with Putin was scheduled for today at 10 a.m. ET, with a subsequent conversation with Zelenskyy on Friday. Trump has previously expressed hope that the talks could result in a ceasefire, but his attempts at negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have failed to yield significant progress.
The U.S. decision to halt weapons shipments—including Patriot air-defense interceptors—shocked Kyiv and its NATO allies. Zelensky has said he is prepared to pay $15 billion for the systems.
Trump’s direct engagement with both Putin and Zelensky signals a renewed attempt to position the U.S. as a central broker in peace negotiations.
The abrupt pause in U.S. military aid has deepened rifts with European allies, who remain committed to supporting Ukraine and fear that Washington’s stance could undermine Western unity.
With arms deliveries suspended, Ukraine is less able to defend itself against Russia’s near-daily bombing of civilians in Ukraine.
Trump’s reluctance to maintain robust support for Ukraine is highly controversial. Critics in both the U.S. and Europe argue that withholding military aid at a critical juncture risks emboldening Russia and could force Ukraine into accepting unfavorable terms. The move has revived memories of Trump’s previous withholding of aid to Ukraine, which Trump parlayed into a deal for rare earth minerals.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in America. Explore this year’s list.
Great Job Jim Edwards, Fortune Intelligence & the Team @ Fortune | FORTUNE Source link for sharing this story.
Cenat said he and his team will be staying in Parker’s house for a month while they host their 30-day Summer Stream, also known as “AMP Summer.”
FILE – Kai Cenat arrives at the Streamy Awards on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Charges of inciting a riot will be dropped against online streamer Kai Cenat after he agreed to pay restitution and apologize for luring thousands of fans to New York’s Union Square last year, prosecutors said. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) (Invision)
The French-American NBA legend shared interesting features about his home, including inspiring artwork, musical instruments and a theater.
The team also got to see a secret room, which could only be opened by Parker’s fingerprint, filled with memorabilia the former Spur had collected from his time in the NBA.
Cenat and his team even got to try on one of Parker’s NBA championship rings.
Parker also shared stories about his time as a basketball player, according to the video.
When asked about his favorite story with Kobe Bryant, he told them about how the late NBA player learned French just to trash-talk him. You can watch that clip on AMP’s social media.
Tony Parker played as a point guard for the San Antonio Spurs for 10 years, from 2001 to 2018. Known as one part of the Spurs’ “Big Three,” Parker helped the Spurs win four of their five championships.
Parker has won several NBA honors, including All-Star awards, Finals MVP and NBA Western Conference Player of the Month in January 2013, NBA records show.
Kai Cenat is one of the most-followed Twitch streamers of 2024, according to Forbes. He is known for his comedic streams, as well as for coining viral phrases, such as “rizz,” which he discussed in an interview with Jimmy Fallon.
You can watch the full stream and the recap of Parker’s house tour on AMP’s YouTube channel.
WARNING: some language in these videos and clips may not be suitable for all audiences.
As usual, the mainstream media is losing its collective mind over the idea of taxing solar and wind power, due to a provision included in the thousand pages of the Big, Beautiful Bill. [emphasis, links added]
The important thing here is that the pundits whining about it clearly don’t understand what energy means in the context of public policy. We must begin by remembering that “energy” can mean many things, depending on the issue at hand.
If you ask an electrical engineer what “energy” is, he may specifically describe the voltage itself and how it travels, but not go further. But in a public policy discussion like this, the voltage is only a tiny slice of a much bigger pie.
How is the fuel converted into power? How is it stored? How is it transmitted? How much land, machinery, personnel, and security does the process need? How convenient is it for the users who need it? How much energy is lost in bridging that distance?
In public policy, therefore, the cost of the fuel is only the very beginning of the conversation. Coal, oil, natural gas, sunlight, and wind are the fuels.
But what does society have to do to convert those raw materials — those very different types of fuel — into power on the electric grid that you and I can tap into to power our lights, our air conditioning, our refrigerators, and our laptop computers?
Coal, oil, and natural gas are not free coming out of the ground, but they are pretty darned close. By contrast, yes, wind and sunlight are free; coal, oil, and natural gas are almost free. But there isn’t really much of a difference in cost between the two groups, at the source.
The relevant difference is this:
Coal, oil, and natural gas are all relatively cheap to convert into usable energy on a grand scale.
Power plants that use oil, coal, and natural gas are all designed to be incredibly efficient for powering an electric grid or for powering vehicles and other engines. The bigger the capacity of the plant, the more efficient it is.
Solar and wind are much more complex. These massive “wind farms” and “solar farms” — huge fields of plastic panels and monstrous towers — take up enormous amounts of the world’s most precious single resource: land.
Plucking an individual tax clause out of a big bill to analyze is always a bit of a challenge, until you know all the context around the program.
But we know this much: there are far more solar energy and wind energy dependencies in the American energy footprint today than ever before, putting lives and business at risk, and these two sources are devouring ever more precious land that the country simply cannot afford to spare.
The unpredictability of such a solar- and wind-dependent grid is already causing almost incalculable problems — such as rolling blackouts and other frequent outages that result in destroyed food at restaurants and grocery stores, manufacturing downtime when factories are without power, lost sales as retailers must shut their stores, lost lives as hospitals or nursing homes can no longer care for their patients.
America’s farming and ranching output is already suffering from this shortsighted switch, and that trend is set to continue dangerously into the future unless we take control of it now.
Good farmland — land that we desperately need for both farming and ranching — is being wasted on massive fields of cheap plastic solar panels (correction: ridiculously expensive, frustratingly fragile, plastic solar panels) and outrageously massive bird-killing wind turbines of concrete, steel, and plastic.
Much has been said about how this solar and wind equipment is unrecyclable, but nowhere near enough has been said about the permanence of these wind turbines.
But once you’ve sunk a hundred concrete and steel wind towers into huge reinforced concrete footings twenty or thirty feet in diameter and just as deep (or even deeper), that land use is permanent.
It would take 1,200 2MW wind turbines to replace one gas-fired plant.
[We’re learning this week that some congresspeople are acknowledging the costs and are courageously arguing that we should reduce the desirability of these particularly destructive projects by raising taxes on them]; that is a perfectly legitimate case worth arguing, and it deserves a place in the national debate.
Between our failing schools and failing press, our compromised political lobbies and Chinese influence, and our thoroughly warped system of rewarding bad ideas with tax credits, we have spent a generation unquestioningly convincing the American public that solar and wind power are the wave of the future, without so much as pretending to address their massive problems with environmental destruction, permanently wasteful misuse of fertile agricultural land, shockingly high cost per gigawatt, and propensity for mechanical failure.
Instead of being horrified that some in Congress want us to pay attention to the downsides of solar and wind power, we should be grateful that somebody in Washington dared to bring it up.
This is a debate that Western civilization desperately needs — the sooner the better.
