Donald Trump has weighed into a new fight – this time with two sports teams. The president wants Washington’s football franchise the Commanders and Cleveland baseball team the Guardians to revert to their former names, which were abandoned in recent years due to being racially insensitive to Native Americans.
Trump said on Sunday on Truth Social that: “The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team …. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past.”
Josh Harris, whose group bought the Commanders in 2023, said earlier this year the name was here to stay. The Guardians’ president of baseball operations, Chris Antonetti, indicated before Sunday’s game against the Athletics that there weren’t any plans to revisit the name change.
Here is more on this and other key Trump stories of the day:
Trump demands Guardians and Commanders change names
Donald Trump has said that he would move to block the Commanders’ plans to build a new stadium at the old RFK Stadium site in Washington DC unless they changed their name. It is unclear if Trump would be able to do so. The RFK Stadium site was once on federal land but Joe Biden signed a bill earlier this year – one of his final acts in office – transferring control to the DC city government for a 99-year term.
Trump also posted that the call to change names applied to Cleveland’s baseball team, which he called “one of the six original baseball teams”.
Ice secretly deports man, 82, from Pennsylvania
An 82-year-old man in Pennsylvania was secretly deported to Guatemala after visiting an immigration office last month to replace his lost green card, according to his family, who have not heard from him since and were initially told he was dead.
According to Morning Call, which first reported the story, longtime Allentown resident Luis Leon – who was granted political asylum in the US in 1987 after being tortured under the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet – lost his wallet containing the physical card that confirmed his legal residency. He and his wife booked an appointment to get it replaced and when he arrived at the office on 20 June he was handcuffed by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who led him away from his wife without explanation, she said. The family said they made efforts to find any information on his whereabouts but learned nothing.
Ice chief says he will continue to allow agents to wear masks
The head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Sunday he would keep allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids.
As Trump has ramped up his unprecedented effort to deport immigrants around the country, Ice officers have become notorious for wearing masks to approach and detain people, often with force. Legal advocates and attorneys general have argued that it poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear.
US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts
Scores of scientists conducting vital research across a range of fields from infectious diseases, robotics and education to computer science and the climate crisis have responded to a Guardian online callout to share their experiences about the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to science funding.
Many said they had already had funding slashed or programs terminated, while others feared that cuts were inevitable and were beginning to search for alternative work, either overseas or outside science. So far the cuts have led to a 60% reduction in Johnson’s team, and fear is mounting over the future of 30 years of climate data and expertise as communities across the US are battered by increasingly destructive extreme weather events.
Trump fossil-fuel push setting back green progress decades, critics warn
Ever since Donald Trump began his second presidency, he has used an “invented” national energy emergency to help justify expanding oil, gas and coal while slashing green energy – despite years of scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels has contributed significantly to climate change, say scholars and watchdogs.
It’s an agenda that in only its first six months has put back environmental progress by decades, they say.
What else happened today:
Trump said he would help Afghans detained in the United Arab Emirates for years after fleeing their country when the US pulled out and the Taliban took power.
Polls released on Sunday showed falling support among Americans for Trump’s hardline measures against illegal immigration, as the Republican president celebrated six months back in power. Polls from CNN and CBS show Trump has lost majority support for his deportation approach.
A growing group of African Americans are ditching corporate big-box retail stores that rolled back their DEI programs and instead are shopping at small, minority- and women-owned businesses they believe value their dollars more.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 19 July.