Good morning. It’s Friday, June 27.

1. Trump Agenda Derailed

2. SCOTUS Decisions Expected in 6 Major Cases

3. Newsom Sues Fox News for $787M

4. Diddy and His Son Accused of Gang Rape

5. GOP Kills 'Revenge Tax' in Trump's Megabill

6. Inflation Rises More Than Expected

7. Defected Doctor: Chinese Trained to Steal US Lab Research

1. Trump Agenda Derailed

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, an unelected official with massive influence over the fate of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda, continues to reduce the size of the Senate version of his “one big, beautiful” bill.

MacDonough has advised Senate Republicans that major reforms to Medicaid will have to be struck from the president’s landmark bill to comply with stringent budget rules. MacDonough has thus far flagged 47 provisions that must be stripped from the bill or revised to comply with Senate rules, effectively forcing Senate Republicans to go back to the drawing board to rewrite major sections of the bill.

Healthcare-related provisions that MacDonough struck from the bill include prohibiting federal Medicaid funding for sex change procedures, denying federal Medicaid funding to states for coverage of certain noncitizens and reducing federal Medicaid expenditures for the Obamacare expansion population in states that offer free healthcare to illegal immigrants.

2. SCOTUS Decisions Expected in 6 Major Cases

Friday, June 26, is the Supreme Court’s final day of issuing opinions on the merits docket for the 2024-25 term. The court has six cases left to decide, on topics ranging from the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional map to the power of federal district judges to issue nationwide injunctions.

Here are brief summaries of the six remaining cases, along with (when possible) predictions about which justice might be writing which opinion.

Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (argued Jan. 15): This case stems from a challenge by a trade group for the adult entertainment industry to a 2023 Texas law that requires pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access. The law applies to any website whose content is one-third or more “harmful to minors.” The question that the justices agreed to decide was whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit properly applied a less stringent constitutional test, known as rational basis review, when reviewing the law, or whether it should have instead applied a more stringent standard, known as strict scrutiny.

3. Newsom Sues Fox News for $787M

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued Fox News on Friday, seeking damages of at least $787 million from the conservative network for allegedly defaming him in misleading comments about a phone call with President Donald Trump.

“No more lies,” Newsom wrote in a tweet that announced his lawsuit, which the Democrat filed in Superior Court in Delaware, where Fox News is incorporated.

The monetary damages Newsom is seeking almost exactly match what Fox Corp. Fox News, and other Fox cable networks agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems in April 2023 to settle a Delaware lawsuit alleging they defamed Dominion by falsely claiming its machines swayed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election against Trump.

4. Diddy and His Son Accused of Gang Rape

Justin Combs is accused of luring a Louisiana woman to Los Angeles to be gang raped by his father, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and two other “masked men.”

According to a lawsuit obtained by Page Six, Justin allegedly convinced the unnamed woman to travel to California in April 2017 under the pretenses that he would get her a job in the entertainment industry.

The woman claimed she was put in a Beverly Hills home for several days and was ultimately raped by several men, including the Bad Boys Records founder.

5. GOP Kills 'Revenge Tax' in Trump's Megabill

Wall Street analysts are breathing a major sigh of relief this morning following overnight news that President Trump’s ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill’ will not include the controversial Section 899 “revenge tax” proposal. The announcement came after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on X, noting that productive discussions with international trade partners have helped “defend American interests.”

Trump’s support for Section 899 stems from his economic nationalism agenda and desire to penalize foreign countries that discriminate against U.S. companies through digital services taxes and other taxes. This was primarily aimed at countering the taxation of U.S. firms by several European countries, as well as Canada and Australia.

“Based on this progress and understanding, I have asked the Senate and House to remove the Section 899 protective measure from consideration in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill. This understanding with our G7 partners provides greater certainty and stability for the global economy and will enhance growth and investment in the United States and beyond,” Bessent wrote in a series of X posts.

6. Inflation Rises More Than Expected

Prices that consumers pay rose slightly in May, while the annual inflation rate edged further away from the Federal Reserve’s target, according to a Commerce Department report Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s primary inflation reading, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.3%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for respective levels of 0.1% and 2.3%.

Excluding food and energy, core PCE posted respective readings of 0.2% and 2.7%, compared with estimates for 0.1% and 2.6%. Fed policymakers consider core to be a better measure of long-term trends because of historic volatility in the two categories. The annual rate was 0.1 percentage point ahead of the April reading.

7. Defected Doctor: Chinese Trained to Steal US Lab Research

A Chinese doctor who fled his home country after blowing the whistle regarding COVID-19 research says that Chinese scientists working in America are trained to steal research from U.S. institutions and represent a significant national security threat.

Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese-educated doctor born in Qingdao, China, says that Chinese scientists are obligated by the government through a “contract” to help steal U.S. intellectual property, research, and anything else of value for use by the Chinese Communist Party.

The doctor’s assessment comes as the Trump administration has launched a vetting process for the hundreds of foreign scientists currently working in the United States from countries of concern like China who were granted visas with the help of the National Institutes of Health and other federal research agencies, Just the News reported this week.