Wednesday Briefing: The Senate approved Trump’s bill
Plus, a new Gaza cease-fire proposal
Morning Briefing: Europe Edition
July 2, 2025

Good morning. We’re covering President Trump’s signature policy bill and extreme heat around the world.

Plus: See Cézanne anew.

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota
Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, oversaw the passage of President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill.  Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The Senate passed Trump’s signature policy bill

The Senate yesterday voted 51 to 50 to approve President Trump’s sweeping bill, which would slash taxes and social safety net programs. Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote after three Republican senators — Susan Collins, Thom Tillis and Rand Paul — voted no.

The vote came after more than 24 brutal hours of debating and negotiating. Republicans cut deals and haggled with skeptics until the very last moments. But the legislative win presents a considerable risk to the party’s political future, my colleague Carl Hulse writes.

An initial analysis showed the bill adding at least $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next 10 years. It would also reduce the amount of tax revenue the country collects for decades. Such a shortfall could begin a seismic shift in the nation’s fiscal trajectory and raise the risk of a debt crisis.

Details: The bill would extend roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts that were enacted in 2017, during Trump’s first term, and would 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.

The latest: A House vote was expected as soon as today. It can afford to lose no more than three Republican votes.

Benjamin Netanyahu, in a suit and red tie, gestures as President Trump, in blue suit and red tie, looks on. Both are seated in gold-colored chairs in an ornately decorated space.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Trump in the Oval Office in April. Eric Lee/The New York Times

A new proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza

In a social media post, Trump said that Israel had agreed to “conditions to finalize” a 60-day cease-fire with Hamas, although he provided no detail about the terms of a potential deal. Israeli officials, including the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have not yet confirmed if they have agreed to conditions.

Trump said his representatives had a “long and productive meeting with the Israelis today on Gaza” and, if the cease-fire is agreed upon, there would be talks about a permanent end to the conflict. The proposal, backed by the U.S. and Israel, would be delivered to Hamas by Qatar and Egypt, he said.

Netanyahu is set to meet with Trump next week in what would be the Israeli leader’s third U.S. visit in less than six months. His planned trip coincides with growing international attention on efforts to achieve a truce in the nearly two-year-old war.

West Bank: Scores of Israelis descended on a Palestinian village last week, and set homes and cars on fire. The attack set off a chain of violence.

Protest: Here’s what to know about Bob Vylan, a punk-rap band that now faces a criminal investigation after leading chants of “Death, death to the I.D.F.” at the Glastonbury music festival.

A masonry laborer drinking water from a tin canister.
A masonry laborer outside Chak Maharajka village, in Rajasthan. Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

How India’s hottest region copes

In 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 work is done outdoors under the blazing sun. So, as the country warms, its daily rhythms are changing. Reporters for The New York Times spent a day in Sri Ganganagar, the country’s hottest region, to see how residents were 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.

MORE TOP NEWS

Images from the war in Ukraine.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

From Europe

SPORTS NEWS

Coco Gauff is shown swinging her racket.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
  • Tennis: On Day 2 of Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic progressed, but Coco Gauff was knocked out. Catch up on all the action.
  • Soccer: Bravo for $2 hot dogs, boo for $19 beers. Here’s what it costs to eat and drink at the Club World Cup.
  • F1: Inside Cadillac’s U.K. factory, the new American team races to get ready for its first season.
  • College sports: In a deal with the Trump administration, the University of Pennsylvania will not allow transgender women to participate in women’s sports.

MORNING READ

A person in a hard hat and bright yellow work vest looks into a shipping container stuffed with green bundles of plastic materials.
Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The world produces nearly a half-billion tons of plastic annually, and rich nations have long relied on poorer ones to take what they discard. Malaysia, for example, received more than 35,000 tons of plastic waste from American scrap brokers last year.

Those arrangements are now ending. Malaysia yesterday effectively banned shipments of plastic waste from the U.S., following in the footsteps of China, Thailand and Indonesia.

Lives lived: Günther Uecker, who helped revolutionize postwar European art as a member of the three-man collective Zero Group, died at 95.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

Four images of Kendrick Lamar, Lisa, Addison Rae and Takashi Murakami.
From left, Mike Segar/Reuters; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images; Caroline Tompkins for The New York Times; Dustin Franz for The New York Times

ARTS AND IDEAS

Bright green rectangles overlaid atop a painting of a quarry by Paul Cézanne.
via Barnes Foundation

A new way to see Cézanne

One of the biggest Cézanne shows in years just opened in the painter’s French hometown, Aix-en-Provence. It features many of the works that admirers know best, including more than a hundred of his bathers, mountains and still lifes. But lesser-known works, like this painting that depicts an exhausted limestone quarry, offer insights that are easily missed, my colleague Jason Farago writes. Take a look.

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