LIVE updates: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

Here is some of Trump’s reaction to the court ruling that his name cannot be added to the Kennedy Centre building.

Writing in a Truth Social post shortly after the board voted to close the cultural centre, Trump said that repair works would not start until after an appeal court rules on a Justice Department appeal of Judge Christopher Cooper’s earlier order barring the first renaming, with Trump’s name on the building.

“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the US Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” the president wrote.

He also announced that he has raised $US17 million to date in donations for the center to “keep it afloat”.

The Associated Press is also reporting exchanges between Trump and board members at the virtual meeting on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST).

It included clashes between Trump and Democrat Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who has led the campaign to block efforts to memorialise the president at the Kennedy Center.

At one point, Beatty referred to Trump as someone who caused “extreme harm,” according to a participant in the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Trump said Beatty was “incompetent” and “holding up everything”.

The Kennedy Center board voted on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) to close most of the famous arts venue just hours after a US federal judge blocked the institution from returning Donald Trump’s name to the building.

The president wrote on Truth Social the closure was needed for safety repairs.But he also said the overhaul would only go ahead if the board, stacked with his backers, was allowed to add his name to the building.

A federal judge has twice said that can’t happen without the approval of Congress.

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” District Judge Christopher Cooper said in the latest ruling.

- With The Associated Press

Oil prices rose further overnight following several sharp swings.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 2.9 per cent to settle at $US108.

It remains well above its $US72 level from early July and from before the war with Iran began in February, as doubt remains about the safety of tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Concerns over the ongoing conflict also caused stocks on Wall Street to slip.The S&P 500 fell 0.4 per cent, The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped to 0.6 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite sank 0.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve is tipped to lift its short-term interest rate on Wednesday (4am, Thursday AEST) for the first time in three years in defiance of Donald Trump.

US economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the central bank to announce a rise from 3.75 per cent to 4 per cent.

US Attorney-General Todd Blanche says there is new information about the shooter responsible for the assassination attempt against Donald Trump during his 2024 campaign in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Blanche has been briefing reporters at the White House after Trump’s earlier comments on social media - made without evidence - that the attempt was a “Democrat plot”.

“It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history. And that’s stuff that we didn’t know before. So that’s the new information,” Blanche said.

The president wrote on Truth Social that former FBI director Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed in his first term but later grew to dislike, “should pay a price” for how the department responded to the assassination bid.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has recounted a joke from US President Donald Trump that he says sums up the current relationship between the two countries.

Carney was speaking at a Toronto investment summit about his visit to the White House in 2025, reports the BBC.

Following talks, Trump presented him with a gold key to the White House.

Carney said the president told him he could bring the key and he would be let into the building, but that “maybe they’ll shoot you”, an exchange Carney said “sort of sums up” the Canada-US relationship.

The North American neighbours are engaged in a bitter trade war sparked by harsh US tariffs on Canadian goods.

The war against Iran has cost the US Department of Defence more than $US38 billion ($53 billion) through to August 1, and will continue costing up to $US3 billion a month or more depending on the intensity of the conflict, according to an assessment released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

It said the war is expected to contribute to US inflation into the first quarter of 2027, making inflation roughly 0.5 percentage points higher than previously estimated.

That’s driven largely by the reduction of oil and natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and disruptions to shipping through the Red Sea.

The head of the FBI, Kash Patel, has been accused by Democrat legislators of covering up the Epstein files when he fronted the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Nine months after the first batch of the Epstein files were publicly released, Patel continues to face questions about what was, and was not, contained in those files.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse questioned the FBI director about 37 pages that were withheld from the public release.

CNN previously reported that dozens of FBI records were missing from the initial public release of the documents, including three interviews that were related to a woman who accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her decades ago.

Trump has long denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein or any allegation of sexual misconduct.

Patel said he wasn’t aware of the 37 pages that Whitehouse was referencing.

“We have complied with the statute and the court orders and produced three and a half million pages of documents for the first time ever,” the director said.

Welcome to our rolling coverage of US politics and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

For the first time ever, the American government has publicly confirmed it has space weapons in the Earth’s orbit.

The head of the FBI, Kash Patel, has been accused by Democrats of weakening the federal crime-fighting agency and covering up the Epstein files.

And the US war against Iran has cost the Pentagon more than $US38 billion ($53 bn), and will continue costing up to $US3 bn a month depending on the intensity of the conflict, a new nonpartisan report says.