Good morning. We’re covering the Senate’s passage of Trump’s big policy bill and extreme heat in India and Europe. Plus, a new way to see Cézanne.
The Senate passed Trump’s signature policy billThe Senate yesterday voted 51-50 to approve President Trump’s sweeping bill to slash taxes and social safety net programs. Republican Senators muscled through deep internal rifts in a bid to deliver Trump’s agenda, but the bill’s fate in the House of Representatives was uncertain. Three Republicans joined every Democrat in voting against the measure, which Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill,” forcing Vice President JD Vance to cast the tiebreaking vote. The vote came after a brutal slog of debating, voting and negotiating that lasted more than 24 hours. Republicans cut deals and haggled with skeptics until the very last moments. The legislative win presents a considerable risk to the party’s political future, my colleague Carl Hulse writes. Details: The bill would extend roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term in 2017 and provide tens of billions of dollars in new funding for border security and the military. Millions of low-income Americans could experience staggering financial losses through cuts to health insurance and other federal aid. What’s next: The House of Representatives is expected to vote today on final approval before the bill is sent to Trump for his signature. Follow our live updates.
How the hottest place in India is copingIn some parts of India, daytime temperatures have hovered close to 50 degrees Celsius, and three-quarters of the country’s population is at risk of extreme heat. For many, there is no escape. Air conditioning is an impossible dream, and a lot of work is completed outdoors under the blazing sun. But life has to go on, no matter how hot it is, and so the country’s daily rhythms are changing. We spent a day in Sri Ganganagar, the hottest region, to see how residents are coping. Elsewhere: Extreme heat is stifling Europe too. Tens of millions of people are bracing for more days of dangerous temperatures. On Monday, Wimbledon had its hottest opening day on record.
Thailand’s prime minister was suspendedThailand was plunged into fresh political turmoil yesterday after the Constitutional Court suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, less than a year after she took office. A group of senators accused her of ethical lapses, which they said took place during a phone conversation last month with the Cambodian leader Hun Sen after a border skirmish in which a Cambodian soldier was killed. The court agreed to consider the complaint and suspended Paetongtarn with immediate effect. She said she accepted the court’s decision and that she would soon present her case. Details: In the phone conversation with Hun Sen, which the Cambodian leader made public, Paetongtarn appeared to disparage her own country’s military. She called Hun Sen “uncle” and offered to “arrange” anything that he wanted.
Malaysia yesterday effectively banned shipments of plastic waste from the U.S. That might not seem like a big deal, but American scrap brokers sent more than 35,000 tons of plastic waste to Malaysia in 2024. In a world that produces nearly a half-billion tons of plastic a year, rich nations have long relied on countries like Malaysia to take what they discard. Now, those arrangements are ending. In 2018, China banned imports of wastepaper and plastic. This year, Thailand and Indonesia announced bans of their own. Lives lived: Günther Uecker, who helped revolutionize postwar European art as a member of the three-man collective Zero Group, died at 95.
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A new way to see CézanneOne of the biggest Cézanne shows in years has just opened in his hometown, Aix-en-Provence, in France. It includes more than a hundred of his bathers, mountains and, especially, still lifes. These are the works that admirers, including my colleague Jason Farago, know best. Jason writes that Cézanne was the first artist he truly loved. Through the painter’s short brushstrokes and colliding perspectives, Jason found his way to Cubism and abstract art, and he even learned how to read Virginia Woolf, with her own idiosyncratic perspectives and spatial ambiguity. But there is another Cézanne: his breathtaking quarry paintings. They have something Jason couldn’t see when he was younger. Take a look.
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