By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have suffered a sizable setback on one key aspect of President Donald Trump’s big bill after their plans to gut the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and other provisions from the Senate Banking Committee ran into procedural violations with the Senate parliamentarian.

Republicans in the Senate proposed zeroing-out funding for the CFPB, the landmark agency set up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, to save $6.4 billion. The bureau had been designed as a way to better protect Americans from financial fraud, but has been opposed by many GOP lawmakers since its inception. The Trump administration has targeted the CFPB as an example of government over-regulation and overreach.

The findings by the Senate parliamentarian’s office, which is working overtime scrubbing Trump’s overall bill to ensure it aligns with the chamber’s strict “Byrd Rule” processes, signal a tough road ahead. The most daunting questions are still to come, as GOP leadership rushes to muscle Trump’s signature package to floor for votes by his Fourth of July deadline.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the chairman of the Banking Committee that drafted the provisions in question, said in a statement, “My colleagues and I remain committed to cutting wasteful spending at the CFPB and will continue working with the Senate parliamentarian on the Committee’s provisions.”

For Democrats, who have been fighting Trump’s 1,000-page package at every step, the parliamentarian’s advisory amounted to a significant win.

“Democrats fought back, and we will keep fighting back against this ugly bill,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, who engineered the creation of the CFPB before she was elected to Congress.

Warren said that GOP proposals “are a reckless, dangerous attack on consumers and would lead to more Americans being tricked and trapped by giant financial institutions and put the stability of our entire financial system at risk–all to hand out tax breaks to billionaires.”

The parliamentarian’s rulings, while advisory, are rarely, if ever ignored.

With the majority in Congress, Republicans have been drafting a sweeping package that extends some $4.5 trillion tax cuts Trump approved during his first term, in 2017, that otherwise expire at the end of the year. It adds $350 billion to national security, including billions for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. And it slashes some $1 trillion from Medicaid, food stamps and other government programs.

All told, the package is estimated to add at least $2.4 trillion to the nation’s deficits over the decade, and leave 10.9 million more people without health care coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s review of the House-passed package, which is now undergoing revisions in the Senate.

The parliamentarian’s office is responsible for determining if the package adheres to the Byrd Rule, named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who was considered one of the masters of Senate procedure. The rule essentially bars policy matters from being addressed in the budget reconciliation process.

Senate GOP leaders are using the budget reconciliation process, which is increasingly how big bills move through the Congress, because it allows passage on a simple majority vote, rather than face a filibuster with the higher 60-vote threshold.

But if any of the bill’s provisions violate the Byrd Rule, that means they can be challenged at the tougher 60-vote threshold, which is a tall order in the 53-47 Senate. Leaders are often forced to strip those proposals from the package, even though doing so risks losing support from lawmakers who championed those provisions.

One of the biggest questions ahead for the parliamentarian will be over the Senate GOP’s proposal to use “current policy” as opposed to “current law” to determine the baseline budget and whether the overall package adds significantly to deficits.

Already the Senate parliamentarian’s office has waded through several titles of Trump’s big bill, including those from the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Energy & Public Works Committee.

The Banking panel offered a modest bill, just eight pages, and much of it was deemed out of compliance.

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The parliamentarian found that in addition to gutting the CFPB, other provisions aimed at rolling back entities put in place after the 2008 financial crisis would violate the Byrd Rule. Those include a GOP provision to limit the Financial Research Fund, which was set up to conduct analysis, saving nearly $300 million; and another to shift the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which conducts oversight of accounting firms, to the Securities and Exchange Commission and terminate positions, saving $773 million.

The GOP plan to change the pay schedule for employees at the Federal Reserve, saving $1.4 billion, was also determined to be in violation of the Byrd Rule.

The parliamentarian’s office also raised Byrd Rule violations over GOP proposals to repeal certain aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act, including on emission standards for some model year 2027 light-duty and medium-duty vehicles.

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Lynx forward Napheesa Collier and Indiana guard Caitlin Clark lead the fan voting for the 2025 WNBA All-Star game after the first round of fan voting, the league announced Friday.

The All-Star Game will be played in Indianapolis at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on July 19. Fans will account for 50 percent of the vote, while all current players and a media panel — completing a ballot featuring four guards and six frontcourt players — will account for 25 percent each.

After the starters have been determined, the league’s head coaches will select the 12 reserves.

Clark, the WNBA rookie of the year and an all-star season, leads all players with 515,993 votes. She is averaging career-highs of 19.9 points and 8.7 assists a game.

Collier, a four-time All-Star, is second with 484,758 votes. She leads the league in scoring with a career-high average of 24.4 ppg. and is sixth in rebounding (8.5).

The Lynx (11-1) have the league’s best record heading into Saturday’s 7 p.m. tip against Los Angeles at Target Center.

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BY FATMA KHALED

CAIRO (AP) — A breakdown in communications networks in central and southern Gaza has cut many Palestinians off from the outside world for the past week, further straining aid efforts and emergency services amid continuing Israeli bombardment.

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Israel targets Iran’s Defense Ministry headquarters as Tehran unleashes deadly missile strike

Israeli strikes damaged a main connection, cutting off communications in large areas of the strip since Tuesday, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The telecom company Paltel said Friday that internet and landline services were restored in some areas in southern Gaza, including Khan Younis, with repairs ongoing in other southern and central areas.

Paltel warned in a statement to AP that ongoing attacks on the main network could make future maintenance impossible, especially due to a shortage of essential materials and resources.

The Gaza Strip has experienced at least 10 communications partial and full outages since the war began in October 2023, according to Palestinian telecom company Paltel. This week’s outage has impacted aid efforts, emergency services, suspended academic classes, and cut off displaced Palestinians from the rest of the territory.

Palestinians in Gaza rely heavily on cell service, as unsafe roads and fuel shortages limit movement across the enclave. Humanitarians say those in affected areas will struggle to access information on aid and medical services or call for ambulances.

“Telecoms have been used as a weapon of war against civilians,” said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugee that is the main service provider in Gaza.

The IDF didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

The vast majority of UNRWA workers don’t have connectivity in the areas affected by the outages. As a result, they and other aid workers have struggled to deliver aid and coordinate with one another, Touma told the AP.

“Sometimes we get a signal when a team member has the courage to go on the rooftop of a building, which is extremely dangerous under strikes, and they send us a message that they’re alive. I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is, but they’re more sporadic and less regular,” said Touma. Some people rely on E-sims, but they are not compatible with all devices and can only work in certain areas.

Unreliable mobile service

Over 70% of telecommunications networks in Gaza has been partially or completely destroyed as of August 2024 since the war began, according to statistics released by the Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Economy, cited by the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute. However, Paltel said technical teams offered some technical solutions that would restore services.

When they hear nearby strikes, Palestinians without connection don’t know whether evacuation orders are issued and where should they relocate to, said Shaina Low, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s communications adviser.

“This also means that people are isolated. They can’t communicate with their family and friends inside of Gaza and understand what the current situation is or get external support from networks outside,” she said.

Limited or unreliable mobile service has made it difficult for ambulances and civil defense teams to reach people in need of life-saving assistance, Low added.

Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director for the group Medical Aid for Palestinians, said its doctors working in hospitals and clinics in effected areas can’t document or share their work with managers.

‘Targeted daily’

Meanwhile, with Gaza’s university campuses heavily damaged, the internet has become the only way to continue education. But outages have forced educators to cancel classes and exams.

“It is, unfortunately, like a never-ending vicious cycle of suffering because when this issue is resolved in the north, the problem appears in the south,” said Mohammed Shbair, vice president for administrative and financial affairs, at al-Azhar University in Gaza.

“Students cannot reach universities because they are destroyed, and they can’t even reach areas where the internet is available in cafes or displacement tents, as they are now being targeted daily and systematically by Israeli strikes,” said Shbair, an associate professor of public law.

Online banking, a key alternative amid cash shortages, has also become unavailable. Palestinians who rely on online transfers to pay suppliers can no longer do so under the current conditions, according to Low.

The outage complicates humanitarian operations and adds to the “toxic stress” families face daily, said UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram.

“In a context of incessant bombardments, mass casualty events linked to food distributions, rising malnutrition and dwindling access to clean water, connectivity is a real lifeline for families in Gaza,” she said.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Islamic regime he has led for more than 35 years now face their biggest test since the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Since last week night, Iran has been bombarded by Israeli airstrikes that show no signs of abating anytime soon. In connection with the Israeli air campaign, the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, has been operating on Iranian soil and targeting senior Iranian nuclear scientists and military officers in an attempt to shatter the Iranian military’s chain of command. Iran’s armed forces chief, the intelligence chief of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the supreme leader’s senior foreign policy adviser have all been killed. Khamenei himself was in Israel’s crosshairs, although President Donald Trump dissuaded the Israelis from assassinating him, fearing an even deeper escalation.

Over the last several days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up the air campaign by striking sites such as the South Pars natural gas field and refineries on the outskirts of Tehran. Netanyahu seems to be ever more enamored with going beyond Israel’s original objective, telling Fox News last weekend that regime change in Tehran could very well be the ultimate result.

In terms of conventional military power, the Iranians are by far the weaker party. Iran’s air force is diminished due to decades of U.S. sanctions and export controls. The Iranian navy is essentially a collection of small boats that have difficulty projecting power beyond the Iranian coastline. And the country’s ground forces haven’t fought a war in more than three decades.

What Tehran does have, however, is the largest ballistic missile stockpile in the Middle East. To date, Iran has kept its retaliation limited to launching periodic volleys of missiles toward Israel’s major population areas in the hope that a few of them will breach the country’s sophisticated air defense system. Indeed, the first days of conflict took on a familiar rhythm, with Israel striking military, energy and nuclear-related targets in Iran and Tehran responding with ballistic missile attacks on Tel Aviv, Haifa and towns in central Israel.

Yet if those attacks are designed to push Israel into suspending its military campaign or at least reevaluating the need for diplomacy, then they’ve failed. Based on his rhetoric as well as the intensity of the Israeli operation, Netanyahu is in no mood for a face-saving exit and appears to genuinely believe that the Islamic Republic is on its last legs. Rather than pushing the Israelis into a negotiation, every Iranian ballistic missile sent toward Israel provides Netanyahu with more ammunition to continue the war and press his central argument: Iran is led by fanatical mullahs bent on Israel’s destruction.

Khamenei isn’t a stupid man; he knows all of this already. While the octogenarian may sound like a zealot when he gives speeches at the pulpit, in practice he’s actually a wily figure who is more pragmatic than he lets on. He keeps all options close to his chest and isn’t immune to backing down if it means preserving his regime or buying time to plan next steps.

In 1988, for instance, then-President Khamenei supported signing a ceasefire with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein after eight years of war and nearly a million casualties. (In 2010, he referred to that decision as “one of the most rational events in Iran’s history.”) After the 9/11 attacks, he authorized Iranian officials to coordinate with the United States against the Taliban in Afghanistan. From 2012 to 2013, Khamenei agreed to dispatch his senior advisers to meet with Washington to explore whether a nuclear agreement was possible, culminating in the 2015 nuclear deal. (Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.) And in April, Khamenei did so again, despite strong reservations the talks would lead anywhere.

Yet the supreme leader is now in a position in which his options are quite limited. His runway is short, any decision he takes will have consequences and he’s at the mercy of Netanyahu, who views the current military campaign as a way to severely degrade Israel’s biggest strategic adversary.

One option would be to throw out feelers to regional mediators and perhaps the United States directly that Iran wants to deescalate and will stop firing missiles toward Israel if the Israelis end bombing operations. This would be the most logical step for the Iranians to take, and it’s one Trump, who wants the fighting to wind down, would likely support. But it runs into the problem of Netanyahu, who has the wind at his back and is demonstrating no urgency to sign a ceasefire. Begging for peace also exposes Khamenei as a weak leader in the eyes of regime hard-liners, who are already preparing succession scenarios for the day when the longtime leader passes from the scene.

Fighting it out is an option as well. Khamenei may bet that Israel doesn’t have the capacity, stamina or will to maintain a war of attrition with Iran over the long term and that the longer the missile exchanges go on, the more political pressure Netanyahu will feel to come to the table.

Even so, this is a very risky bet for the Iranians to make and underestimates Netanyahu’s ability to withstand public opinion. After all, Netanyahu remains committed to the 20-month-old war in Gaza despite the Israeli public increasingly prioritizing the return of all the hostages over the defeat of Hamas. If the ultra-right ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet want to continue bombing Iran, it’s likely the Israeli premier will do so, if only to save his political skin.

Iran’s supreme leader has confronted crises before. But this is his biggest to date.

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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