Karoline Leavitt says Trump doesn’t want to execute Democrats after president’s earlier social post suggesting their behavior is ‘punishable by DEATH’

The Trump administration presented a new plan to roll back regulations in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Wednesday, a move experts fear will accelerate the extinction crisis if adopted.

The proposed changes would allow the federal government more power to weigh economic impact against habitat designations, remove safeguards against future events – including the impacts from the climate crisis – and rescind the “blanket rule” that automatically grants threatened species the same protections as those designated as endangered.

Joe Biden and George W Bush attend Republican’s service, while Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are notable absentees

Donald Trump and JD Vance have been snubbed, by not being invited to former vice-president Dick Cheney’s funeral, taking place on Thursday, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.

Cheney, the former US vice-president to George W Bush and a Republican defense hawk who became a fierce critic of the current US president, died earlier this month at the age of 84.

Top Democrat on Senate banking committee says private funding for Trump’s ballroom poses serious corruption concerns

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Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has said that the next independent Department of Justice “should investigate” the private donations that have funded the construction of the new White House ballroom.

Warren – who is the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee – told the Guardian in a statement that the ballroom could be “a golden crime scene” and urged the next administration to “follow the money” to uncover “whether any crimes were committed” in its financing.