The Latest: Trump cancels billions in clean energy grants
News > National News
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7:46 AM on Friday, October 3
By The Associated Press
The Trump administration is canceling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.
The move comes as Trump threatens deep cuts in his fight with congressional Democrats over the government shutdown.
The Energy Department said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable.
Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.
The cuts are likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
The latest:
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will visit U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House next week, it was announced on Friday.
The meeting comes ahead of a review of a free trade agreement and as Trump is engaging in 51st state talk again as Canada asks to be included in Trump’s future Golden Dome missile defense program.
In a statement, Carney’s office said the prime minister will travel to Washington on Monday before meeting Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Carney won Canada’s election earlier this year fueled by Trump’s annexation threats and trade war, but he has tried to improve relations ahead of a review of the free trade deal next year.
More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. and Canada recently dropped many of its retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA.
The Supreme Court said Friday it will consider overturning a Hawaii law that imposes strict regulations on where people can carry guns.
The Trump administration had urged the justices to take the case, arguing the law violates the court’s 2022 ruling that found people have a right to carry firearms in public under the Second Amendment.
The Hawaii law bans guns on private property unless the owner has specifically allowed them. It also prohibits firearms in places like beaches, parks, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.
State attorneys argue that they’ve already loosened its concealed-carry permit regulations to align with the high court’s 2022 ruling. They say its new restrictions strike a reasonable balance between gun rights and public safety.
A judge blocked the Hawaii law after it was challenged in court by a gun rights group and three people from Maui. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely reversed that decision and allowed Hawaii to enforce the law.
White House budget director Russ Vought said the Trump administration will withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects, expanding funding fights that have targeted Democratic areas during the government shutdown.
The pause affects a long-awaited plan to extend the city’s Red Line train. Vought wrote on social media Friday that the money was “put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.”
He made a similar announcement earlier this week involving New York, where Vought said $18 billion for infrastructure would be paused, including funding for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he tried to distance himself from during the 2024 presidential campaign.
In a post on his Truth Social site Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
The comments, posted on Thursday, represented an about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.
The federal government was thrown into a shutdown Wednesday, as Democrats held firm to their demands to salvage health care subsidies that Trump and Republicans in Congress have dismissed as something to possibly discuss later.
Trump has seized on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce, threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting “irreversible” cuts to programs important to Democrats.
▶ Read more about how both parties have used shutdown threats
U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize has drawn added attention to the annual guessing game over who its next laureate will be.
Longtime Nobel watchers say Trump’s prospects remain remote despite a flurry of high-profile nominations and some notable foreign policy interventions for which he has taken personal credit.
Experts say the Norwegian Nobel Committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals. Trump’s own record might even work against him, they said, citing his apparent disdain for multilateral institutions and his disregard for global climate change concerns.
Still, the U.S. leader has repeatedly sought the Nobel spotlight since his first term, most recently telling United Nations delegates late last month “everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
A person cannot nominate themselves.
