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Trump may have his name on the building but it’s still the Kennedy Center to Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump may have his name on the building, but it’s still the Kennedy Center to Congress.

A bipartisan spending package released Monday by House Speaker Mike Johnson includes $32 million for operating expenses at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts through Sept. 30, 2027.

Trump made a series of leadership changes at the center shortly after he took office in 2025 that ended with the Republican president’s handpicked board of trustees voting in December to rebrand the venue as the Trump Kennedy Center by adding his name to Kennedy’s on the exterior of the building and the website.

The Kennedy Center said the vote recognized Trump’s work to revitalize an institution he had criticized as being too liberal-leaning. But since he took over the center, numerous artists have canceled appearances, ticket sales and attendance have fallen, and viewership for December’s broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors program — which he predicted would soar because he was the host — was down by about 35% compared to the 2024 show.

After Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to the Democrat. The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior. The board’s vote is the subject of a lawsuit in federal court.

Dutch court allows rapper Ye concerts in the Netherlands

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A judge in Amsterdam on Wednesday rejected an appeal by a Jewish organization to block two performances by the rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, ruling that the concerts are not a threat to public order. Ye has drawn widespread controversy in recent years for a series of antisemitic remarks, leaving Dutch authorities under mounting pressure to cancel the gigs on June 6 and 8. The Central Jewish Council filed the emergency lawsuit on Tuesday, arguing that Ye should be banned from the country for voicing admiration for Adolf Hilter and selling T-shirts featuring swastikas. According to the Amsterdam District Court, there were no grounds to bar Ye from performing. “There are no indications that West’s presence in the coming days will lead to concrete public order dangers,” the court said in a statement.
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