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Apple Thursday made changes to its App Store European policies, saying it believes the new rules will help the company avoid a fine of 500 million euro ($585 million) from the EU for violating the Digital Markets Act.

The new policies are a complicated system of fees and programs for app makers, with some developers now paying three separate fees for one download. Apple also is going to introduce a new set of rules for all app developers in Europe, which includes a fee called the “core technology commission” of 5% on all digital purchases made outside the App Store.

The changes Apple announced are not a complete departure from the company’s previous policy that drew the European Commission’s attention in the first place.

Apple said it did not want to make the changes but was forced to by the European Commission’s regulations, which threatened fines of up to 50 million euros per day. Apple said it believed its plan is in compliance with the DMA and that it will avoid fines.

“The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement. “We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal.”

A spokesperson for the European Commission did not say that Apple was no longer subject to the fine. He said in a statement that the EC is looking at Apple’s new terms to see if the company is in compliance.

“As part of this assessment the Commission considers it particularly important to obtain the views of market operators and interested third parties before deciding on next steps,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The saga in Brussels is the latest example of Apple fiercely defending its App Store policies, a key source of profit for the iPhone maker through fees of between 15% and 30% on downloads through its App Store.

It also shows that Apple is continuing to claim it is owed a commission when iPhone apps link to websites for digital purchases overseas despite a recent court ruling that barred the practice in the U.S.

Under the Digital Markets Act, Apple was required to allow app developers more choices for how they distribute and promote their apps. In particular, developers are no longer prohibited from telling their users about cheaper alternatives to Apple’s App Store, a practice called “steering” by regulators.

In early 2024, Apple announced its changes, including a 50 cent fee on off-platform app downloads.

Critics, including Sweden’s Spotify, pushed back on Apple’s proposed changes, saying that the tech firm chose an approach that violated the spirit of the rules, and that its fees and commissions challenge the viability of the alternative billing system. The European Commission investigated for a year, and it said on Thursday that it would again seek feedback from Apple’s critics.

“From the beginning, Apple has been clear that they didn’t like the idea of abiding by the DMA,” Spotify said last year.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company successfully changed Apple’s steering rules in the U.S. earlier this year, accused Apple of “malicious compliance” in its approach to the DMA.

“Apple’s new Digital Markets Act malicious compliance scheme is blatantly unlawful in both Europe and the United States and makes a mockery of fair competition in digital markets,” Sweeney posted on social media on Thursday. “Apps with competing payments are not only taxed but commercially crippled in the App Store.”

The European Commission announced the 500 million euro fine in April. The commission at the time said that the tech company might still be able to make changes to avoid the fine.

Apple’s restrictions on steering in the United States were tossed earlier this year, following a court order in the long-running Epic Games case. A judge in California found that Apple had purposely misled the court about its steering concessions in the United States and instructed it to immediately stop asking charging a fee or commission on for external downloads.

The order is currently in effect in the United States as it is being appealed and has already shifted the economics of app development. As a result, companies like Amazon and Spotify in the U.S. can direct customers to their own websites and avoid Apple’s 15% to 30% commission.

In the U.S., Amazon’s iPhone Kindle app now shows an orange “Get Book” button that links to Amazon.com.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Home Depot said Monday that it is buying GMS, a building-products distributor, for about $4.3 billion as the retailer moves to draw more sales from contractors and other home professionals.

Shares of Home Depot were roughly flat in early trading Monday. GMS shares jumped more than 11%.

As part of the deal, the Home Depot-owned subsidiary SRS Distribution will buy all outstanding shares of GMS for $110 per share, which adds up to about $4.3 billion and amounts to total enterprise value including net debt of about $5.5 billion, the company said.

Home Depot said it expects the acquisition to be completed by early 2026.

Home Depot’s announcement also concludes a potential bidding war between the big-box retailer and billionaire Brad Jacobs. Jacobs’ building-products distributor QXO had offered about $5 billion in cash to acquire GMS and said it would press forward with a hostile takeover if the company’s management rejected the proposal.

As Home Depot chases growth, it’s gone after a steadier and more lucrative piece of the home improvement business: electricians, roofers, home renovators and other professionals who tackle large projects year-round and need a lot of supplies. Home Depot said it’s speeding along that strategy with the GMS deal.

Home Depot bought SRS Distribution — the subsidiary that’s acquiring GMS — last year for $18.25 billion, in the largest acquisition in its history. Texas-based SRS sells supplies to professionals in the landscaping, roofing and pool businesses and it has bought up many other smaller suppliers as it’s grown.

Home Depot’s focus on selling to professionals is well-timed. Sales from do-it-yourself customers have slowed as higher mortgage rates have decreased housing turnover and dampened homeowners’ demand for larger projects because of higher borrowing costs.

The company said it expects total sales to grow by 2.8% for the full fiscal year and comparable sales, which take out the impact of one-time factors like store openings and calendar differences, to rise about 1%.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Home Depot said Monday that it is buying GMS, a building-products distributor, for about $4.3 billion as the retailer moves to draw more sales from contractors and other home professionals.

Shares of Home Depot were roughly flat in early trading Monday. GMS shares jumped more than 11%.

As part of the deal, the Home Depot-owned subsidiary SRS Distribution will buy all outstanding shares of GMS for $110 per share, which adds up to about $4.3 billion and amounts to total enterprise value including net debt of about $5.5 billion, the company said.

Home Depot said it expects the acquisition to be completed by early 2026.

Home Depot’s announcement also concludes a potential bidding war between the big-box retailer and billionaire Brad Jacobs. Jacobs’ building-products distributor QXO had offered about $5 billion in cash to acquire GMS and said it would press forward with a hostile takeover if the company’s management rejected the proposal.

As Home Depot chases growth, it’s gone after a steadier and more lucrative piece of the home improvement business: electricians, roofers, home renovators and other professionals who tackle large projects year-round and need a lot of supplies. Home Depot said it’s speeding along that strategy with the GMS deal.

Home Depot bought SRS Distribution — the subsidiary that’s acquiring GMS — last year for $18.25 billion, in the largest acquisition in its history. Texas-based SRS sells supplies to professionals in the landscaping, roofing and pool businesses and it has bought up many other smaller suppliers as it’s grown.

Home Depot’s focus on selling to professionals is well-timed. Sales from do-it-yourself customers have slowed as higher mortgage rates have decreased housing turnover and dampened homeowners’ demand for larger projects because of higher borrowing costs.

The company said it expects total sales to grow by 2.8% for the full fiscal year and comparable sales, which take out the impact of one-time factors like store openings and calendar differences, to rise about 1%.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Oslo police on Friday announced charges against Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess, on multiple counts including rape, sexual assault and bodily harm after a months-long investigation of a case that involved a “double-digit” number of alleged victims.

Høiby, the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 amid allegations of rape and on preliminary charges of bodily harm and criminal damage.

Oslo Police Attorney Andreas Kruszewski said Høiby was cooperative during police questioning, which is now complete. Evidence in the case was drawn from sources including text-messages, witness testimonies and police searches, the police attorney said.

The charges included one case of rape involving intercourse and two cases of rape without intercourse, four cases of sexual assault and two cases of bodily harm, Kruszewksi said at a news conference.

“I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case beyond confirming that it is a double-digit number,” he said.

Defense attorney Petar Sekulic, in an email to The Associated Press, said Høiby was “absolutely taking the accusations very seriously, but doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in most of the cases — especially the cases regarding sexual abuse and violence.”

The royal palace did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request from the AP seeking comment. The palace was quoted by the Norwegian newswire NTB saying it would not comment while the case winds its way through the “normal procedures.”

The case was top news in Norway, where the royals are popular.

Høiby, 28, previously lived with the royal couple and their two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, but now lives in a separate house nearby, according to Sekulic.

Høiby remains free pending a possible trial and is entitled to a presumption of innocence until a court rules otherwise.

Once known affectionately as “Little Marius,” Høiby grew up in the public eye enjoying the same wealth and privilege as his royal siblings, although his biological father, Morton Borg, served time in prison for drugs and violent offenses. Høiby has acknowledged cocaine use and addiction.

Norway’s future queen made headlines in 2001 when she married Haakon because she was a single mother who had lived a freewheeling life with a companion who had been convicted on drug charges.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Russia has amassed 110,000 troops in the vicinity of Pokrovsk as part of its efforts to take over the strategic eastern Ukrainian city, the Ukrainian military chief said Friday.

Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that the area around Pokrovsk was the “hottest spot”along the 1,200-kilometre (745 miles) front line which runs across the east.

Russian forces have been trying to capture Pokrovsk for almost a year, staging one grinding offensive after another. But despite having a clear advantage in terms of the number of troops and weapons available, Moscow has failed to take over the city.

Pokrovsk is a strategic target for Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to seize all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk his forces partially occupy.

Kyiv and its allies accuse Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of stalling on peace efforts so that his forces can seize more Ukrainian territory.

Although not a major city, Pokrovsk sits on a key supply road and railroad that connect it with other military hubs in the area. Together with Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, it forms the backbone of Ukrainian defenses in the part of Donetsk region that are still under Kyiv’s control.

Some 60,000 lived in Pokrovsk before the war, but the majority have left in the three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s last operating coking coal mine was in Pokrovsk and many of its employees were staying in the area to keep it going. Once it was forced to shut down early this year, they too began to leave.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitor, said late last year that Ukrainian defensive operations in Pokrovsk have forced Russia to abandon its original plan to take over Pokrovsk in a frontal assault.

The ISW said this was because Ukrainian troops began using drones as integral part of their defensive strategy, successfully integrating drone operators with their ground forces.

At the same time, Russia was unable to increase the number of troops in the area by much, because it was trying to contain the surprise incursion of Ukrainian troops into its own territory in the southern Kursk region.

Syrskyi told reporters last week that at one point, the Kursk operation pulled back nearly 63,000 Russian troops and some 7,000 North Korean troops.

“This allowed us to weaken the enemy’s pressure on the main fronts and regroup our troops. And the enemy’s capture of Pokrovsk, announced back in September 2024, has not yet taken place, thanks in part to our Kursk operation,” he said.

Instead of continuing to attacking the city directly, Russian troops then began encircling the city from south and northeast.

The ISW said in its most recent assessment on Friday that Russian forces were continuing assaults with small fireteams of one to two soldiers, sometimes on motorcycles, in all-terrain vehicles and buggies.

In a statement issued on Friday, Syrksky said Russia continued to try to break through to the administrative border of the Donetsk region.

“They want to do this not only to achieve some operational results, but primarily for demonstrative purposes. To achieve a psychological effect: to put the infamous ‘foot of the Russian soldier’ there, plant a flag and trumpet another pseudo-‘victory’,” he said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

The Israeli military has denied a new report that soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza, after hundreds of people were reported killed while approaching food distribution sites in recent weeks.

On Friday, the daily Haaretz newspaper published an article alleging that Israeli soldiers in Gaza were instructed by their commanders to shoot at the crowds of Palestinians approaching aid sites, even as it was evident that the crowds posed no threat.

One soldier who spoke anonymously with Haaretz described the approach routes to the aid sites as a “killing field” where Israeli forces open fire even if there is no immediate threat. According to the article, Israeli forces recently began dispersing crowds with artillery shells, which resulted in a sharp rise in casualties.

“We strongly reject the accusation raised in the article — the IDF did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centers,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in response to the article. “To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have also rejected the report as “vicious lies designed to discredit the IDF – the most moral army in the world.”

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed as they approached aid sites or trucks carrying aid since May 27, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Palestinians have come under fire on a near daily basis as they approach the sites, health officials and emergency responders have said.

On multiple occasions, the IDF has acknowledged firing what it called “warning shots” at Palestinians approaching military positions near aid distribution sites. It has also said that it is examining reports of casualties, but it has not publicly released any findings to date.

According to Haaretz, the Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – which reviews incidents involving the potential violations of the laws of war – to investigate suspected war crimes near the aid sites.

“Any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary,” the IDF said on Friday.

Shots fired at controversial aid sites

The Gaza aid sites where the deaths have occurred are run by the controversial Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which hands out pre-packaged boxes of food at a handful of locations in southern and central Gaza. The group’s distribution was chaotic from the start one month ago, with crowds of desperate Palestinians rushing the sites the moment they open to take the available aid before it runs out, often within less than an hour.

GHF was set up to replace the United Nations aid distribution mechanism, which Israel and the US have accused Hamas of looting. Hamas has rejected those claims, and humanitarian groups say most of the UN-distributed food aid reaches civilians.

GHF coordinates with the Israeli military to designate specific routes for Palestinians traveling to their aid sites and has come under sharp criticism from aid experts. It has acknowledged some episodes of violence occurring outside of its immediate aid sites, but repeatedly described food distribution operations as having “proceeded without incident.”

In response to the Haaretz reporting, the organization said it was “not aware” of the specific incidents described. Nevertheless, it added, “these allegations are too grave to ignore and we therefore call on Israel to investigate them and transparently publish the results in a timely manner.”

On Thursday, the US State Department announced that it is awarding $30 million to the organization, a sign of continued US support for GHF, which says it distributed 46 million meals in four weeks of operations.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Ecuadorian forces have revealed how they captured the country’s most-wanted man, drug lord Adolfo “Fito” Macías, more than a year after his brazen prison escape prompted the president to declare an internal armed conflict to crack down on the country’s most violent gangs.

After an almost 18-month manhunt for the leader of the criminal group Los Choneros, the Ecuadorian Security Bloc made a breakthrough on June 25. They obtained intelligence that alerted them to a luxurious home in the province of Manabí, the gang’s longtime stronghold for drug operations.

Authorities immediately traveled to the area and launched a 10-hour operation to try to find and capture the notorious gangster. To prevent the raid from being thwarted, the military and police shut down access within a 15-block radius so no one could enter or leave the site.

Special teams from the armed forces eventually entered the property to gather more information and take control of the house.

It was a fully equipped villa, featuring a pool, a gym, appliances, a game room, marble-like walls, and features that indicated the property was still under construction.

In one area of the house, there was a perfectly camouflaged hole in the floor, containing a bunker with hidden access and air conditioning.

“Police and armed forces on the scene began conducting a search with instruments to see where alias ‘Fito’ was hiding,” Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg said.

A surveillance flight had identified an irregular crop field behind the house, so authorities requested the use of excavators to locate the drug lord.

“They started to excavate. As soon as this happened, Fito panicked because if we continued, the roof of his bunker would collapse. At that moment, he opened the hatch, where the military was already located, and climbed out of the hole where he was hiding. That’s how we detained him,” Reimberg said.

Soldiers pinned Macías to the ground, pointed weapons at him and ordered him to say his full name out loud.

“Adolfo Macías Villamar,” he said while lying on the floor with his hands behind his back, footage from the army showed.

After the operation, authorities arrested Macías, along with four other men identified as part of his security detail.

Macías was immediately transferred to the Manta Air Base and then to the Guayaquil Air Base. From there, he was taken to the maximum-security La Roca prison, located in the Guayaquil prison complex, behind La Regional prison, from where he escaped in January 2024.

A photo later released by the interior ministry showed the drug lord locked inside his cell.

President Daniel Noboa said Ecuador is working to extradite him to the United States – where he faces drugs and weapons charges – and is awaiting a response from American officials.

Macías is one of Ecuador’s most notorious gangsters and is the only founding member of Los Choneros believed to still be alive. In 2011 he was sentenced “for a string of crimes, including homicides and narcotics trafficking,” according to think tank Insight Crime, but sprung out of jail in February 2013 before being recaptured months later.

Little is known about his life prior to crime, but he gained a reputation for being the gang’s money laundering expert while incarcerated for over a decade.

Before he fled prison in 2024, the government was planning on moving Macías to a higher-security facility. Noboa’s press secretary told a local channel that the news had likely reached Macías and prompted him to make his escape.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Min Young-jae has not seen or heard anything about her eldest brother for 75 years. He was 19 and she was only 2 when, during the early days of the Korean War, he was kidnapped to the North.

Their peaceful days were shattered on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. The three-year war would kill more than 847,000 troops and about 522,000 civilians from both sides, and tear apart more than 100,000 families, including Min’s.

After the war, the family kept the rusting doors of their tile-roofed house open, in hopes that their eldest would one day return. But over time, barbed wire has been installed between the two Koreas, and a modern apartment complex has replaced the house.

Though 75 years have passed without a single word about or from the brother, Min and her siblings remain hopeful that they will hear about him some day. Or, if not him, then his children or grandchildren.

A happy family

The family lived in Dangnim village, nestled between green mountains on the western side of Chuncheon city, nearly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of chirping birds, streaming water and chugging tractors.

It was also dangerously close to the 38th parallel, which divided the peninsula after World War II.

Min Young-jae, the youngest of seven, does not remember fighting with any of her siblings growing up; only sharing tofu that her parents made, splashing in the stream and being carried around on her eldest brother’s shoulders.

Handsome, kind and smart, Min Young-sun was studying at the Chuncheon National University of Education, following in the footsteps of his father, the principal of Dangnim Elementary School.

“His nickname was ‘Math Whiz.’ He excelled in math, even his classmates called him Math Whiz,” Min Jeong-ja, the fifth child of the family, said.

Some days, students followed him all the way home, as he commuted via train and boat, asking him to teach math, the sisters recalled.

The sisters remember Min Young-sun as a caring brother. They caught fish and splashed in the nearby stream, now widely covered with reeds and weeds and almost out of water.

“We grew up in real happiness,” Min Jeong-ja said.

Torn apart

Living near the frontier between the newly separated Koreas – backed by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min’s family was among the first to experience the horrors of the Korean War.

When Kim Il Sung’s North Korean troops invaded, Min Jeong-ja remembers seeing her grandmother running in tears, with a cow in tow, screaming: “We’re in a war!”

“We all spread out and hid in the mountains, because we were scared. One day, we hid the 4-year-old, Young-jae, in the bushes and forgot to bring her back because we had so many siblings. When we returned that night, she was still there, not even crying,” Min Jeong-ja said.

While the family was running in and out of the mountains, taking shelter from the troops coming from the North, Min Young-sun was kidnapped, taken to the North by his teacher.

“The teacher gathered smart students and hauled them (away). He took several students, tens of them. Took them to the North,” Min Jeong-ja said.

It is unknown why the teacher would have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang had abducted South Koreans to supplement its military.

“People called the teacher a commie,” Min Jeong-ja said.

That heartache was soon followed by another: the death of the second-eldest brother. He died of shock and pain, in deep sorrow from the kidnap of his brother, according to the sisters.

“The grief was huge. Our parents lost two sons… imagine how heartbreaking that would be,” Min Jeong-ja said.

For their father, the pain of losing two sons was overwhelming. He developed a panic disorder, she said, and would struggle to work for the rest of his life.

“He couldn’t go outside; he stayed home all the time. And because he was hugely shocked, he struggled going through day-to-day life. So, our mom went out (to work) and suffered a lot,” Min Young-jae said.

The mother jumped into earning a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning she prayed for Min Young-sun, filling a bowl with pure water as part of a Korean folk ritual and leaving the first scoop of the family’s rice serving that day in a bowl for a son whom she believed would return one day.

“She couldn’t move house; in case the brother cannot find his way back home. She wouldn’t let us change anything of the house, not even the doors. That’s how she waited for him… We waited for so long, and time just passed,” Min Jeong-ja said.

The pain continues

Min Jeong-ja was 8 years old when the war started, but witnessed brutality that would overwhelm many adults.

“So many kids died. When I went out to the river to wash clothes, I occasionally saw bodies of children floating,” she recalled.

She remembers witnessing North Korean soldiers lining up people in a barley field, and shooting at them with submachine guns. “Then one by one, they fell on the barley field.”

“I saw too much. At one point – I didn’t even know if the soldier was a South Korean or North Korean – but I saw beheaded remains.”

The Min family is one of many torn apart by the war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting to hear from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is now one of the world’s most reclusive states, with travel between the two countries nigh-on impossible.

Years after the Korean War, the two Koreas discussed organizing reunions for the separated families that have been identified from both sides through the Red Cross and both governments.

The first reunion happened in 1985, more than 30 years after the ceasefire agreement was signed, and the annual reunions kicked off in 2000, when many first-hand war victims were still alive, but occasionally halted when tensions escalated on the peninsula.

Once the two governments agree on a reunion date, one of the two Koreas selects families, prioritizing the elderly and immediate relatives, then shares the list with the other, which would cross check the family on its side to confirm the list of around 100 members.

The selected families would meet at an office specifically built for reunions at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea.

The Min siblings applied to the Red Cross at least five times and listed themselves under the South Korean government as a separated family. But there was never any word on their brother’s whereabouts from the other side.

As 75 years passed, the siblings grew up, got married, and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother linger.

Even worse, the annual reunions of separated families have been halted since 2018, following failed summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, while first-hand victims of the war age and pass away.

The Kumgang resort was dismantled by the North in 2022, also amid strained tensions.

But the siblings, following their parents’ wishes, still hope to connect with Min Young-sun, who would now be 94 years old.

“It’s been a long time since we were separated, but I would be so grateful if you’re alive. And if you’re not, I still would love to meet your children. I want to share the love of family, remembering the happy days of the past… I love you, thank you.”

She and the siblings remember the kidnapped brother by singing his favorite song, “Thinking of My Brother,” a children’s song about a brother that never returned.

“My brother, you said you would come back from Seoul with silk shoes,” Min Young-jae sang, while her sister wiped away tears.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

House Republicans are growing increasingly wary of the self-imposed July 4 deadline to get President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ to the White House, as the president warns that the bill ‘must’ be ready for his signature by then.

‘I think it’s more important to get the bill correct than it is to get it fast,’ Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a former House Freedom Caucus chairman, told Fox News Digital. ‘I’m interested in a great deliverable product, and spending the time and the resources necessary to get that, whatever they may be.’

It’s a thought shared by members outside of the conservative rebel group as well – Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., who represents part of New York City, said Fourth of July is a ‘realistic’ goal, but not one she was married to.

‘I’m not set on getting this done by July 4th. I know that’s a goal, it’s a nice soundbite, doing this on Independence Day and celebrating America,’ Malliotakis said. ‘But at the end of the day, we’ve got to do it right. And I’d rather take a few more days, a few more weeks, to make sure we can deliver a good product for the American people.’

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Friday that it was ‘possible’ the deadline could slip, ‘but I don’t want to even accept that as an option right now. We want to try to push this.’

The vast tax and immigration bill is currently in the Senate, where lawmakers are still working through several key issues on Medicaid and state and local tax (SALT) deductions among other details.

An earlier version passed the House by just one vote in late May.

Now, several House Republicans are balking at proposed changes in the Senate – though there’s still no final product – and warning that the bill could lose their support when it returns to the House.

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., who leads the Doctors Caucus, told Fox News Digital he had issues with the Senate version’s comparably harsher cuts to federal Medicaid funding.

‘There is uniform agreement amongst many, many members in the House – if there’s a change in the [federal Medicaid assistance percentage], we’re not voting for it. It would remove the Medicaid expansion of North Carolina. I won’t stand for that,’ he said.

Asked about the feasibility of a July 4 deadline, Murphy said, ‘I’ve been a surgeon all my life … if I plan things, I’m used to having them given up in case a patient needs me for emergencies and things like that.’

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., a moderate, said ‘there might be some prudence’ in letting go of the July 4 deadline.

Conservative Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, was more optimistic. ‘I think it’s more worth it to get the bill right, but that’s not to say we won’t get it done by then,’ he said.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., suggested the timeline will rely heavily on Trump.

The Senate is expected to work through the weekend to pass the bill.

Johnson told House Republicans, meanwhile, to be flexible next week when they’re expected to be home in their districts. Sources have told Fox News Digital that House GOP leaders have offered varying estimations of when lawmakers will have to be back in Washington, from Tuesday through Thursday.

And the House is up against at least one real-world deadline: The U.S. is expected to run out of cash to pay its debts by the summer, according to multiple projections. Republicans have made raising the debt limit a priority in the bill.

Trump, for his part, wrote on Truth Social Friday, ‘The House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th – We can get it done.’

He said during a press conference earlier in the day, ‘We can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time, if possible.’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office after a meeting marking a U.S.-brokered peace deal in Africa, President Donald Trump touted his administration’s progress on achieving peace deals across the globe, something he said has been possible because world leaders ‘respect our country again.’  

‘We were not a country that was respected. Just a year ago we had a president that was incompetent. We had bad people circulating around this desk, this beautiful Resolute desk,’ said Trump. ‘They had, I guess, evil intentions. They were, you couldn’t be that stupid, I mean, they had evil intentions, but the world respects our country again.’ 

Commenting on a freshly brokered African peace, which will end a decades-long conflict between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Trump said it ‘is a tremendous breakthrough.’ 

‘In a few short months, we’ve now achieved peace between India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran and the DRC and Rwanda and, a couple of others also, Serbia [and Kosovo],’ he said. 

He also called his NATO trip ‘very successful,’ saying U.S. allies committed to spend over $1 trillion on defense. 

‘We’ve had some tremendous success,’ said the president. 

Trump also mentioned the successful strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites and the subsequent ceasefire brokered between Israel and Iran. 

‘We had the war, as you know, we call it the ‘12 Day War,’ it was exactly a 12-day war. And we ended up with no nuclear weapons. That’s what we wanted. And they were, they were just absolutely blown to pieces those three sites and there’s no nuclear weapons. And hopefully there can be a lot of healing. And healing is starting,’ he said. 

On the topic of healing in the Middle East, Trump also predicted there will be a ceasefire in Gaza sometime ‘within the next week.’ 

He called the situation in Gaza ‘terrible’ but expressed optimism there could soon be a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. 

‘I think it’s close. I just spoke with some of the people involved,’ said the president, adding, ‘We think within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire.’ 

Trump also addressed the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying, ‘We’re supplying, as you know, a lot of money and a lot of food to that area because we have to, I mean, you have to. In theory, we’re not involved in it, but we’re involved because people are dying.’

He called on other countries to also send humanitarian aid to Gaza.

‘We’re working on Gaza, trying to get it taken care of and again, you know, a lot of food has been sent there. And other countries throughout the world should be helping also,’ he said. 

In addition to being respected by America’s allies, Trump said his administration has improved relations with countries such as Russia, North Korea, China and Iran. 

‘Vladimir Putin made some very nice statements today,’ he said. ‘Look, he respects our country again. He didn’t respect it a year ago. I can tell you right now, but Putin respects our country and, President Xi of China respects our country. And Kim Jong Un respects. They respect our country again.’

In response to a question on whether he may authorize U.S. Patriot missiles for Ukraine’s air defenses, Trump simply responded, ‘I may.’ 

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