The Rapid Rise of Right-Wing Militias

A photo went viral on Independence Day this year. It showed a Black woman on a Metro train in Washington, DC, surrounded by members of Patriot Front, a far-right white nationalist group. The picture, taken on America’s 250th anniversary, seemed to encapsulate not only the continuing story of race in America, but also this current moment when right-wing groups seem louder, prouder, and more public than they’ve been in decades.

Mary McCord has been working to prosecute groups like Patriot Front for years. Following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, the Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor successfully won a consent decree that banned the rally’s lead organizer from planning future paramilitary activity in the city. Still, McCord says right-wing militias are benefiting from a friendly administration that has stretched back to Donald Trump’s earliest days campaigning for the presidency.

The president is “aligned with them, whether he believes in white nationalism, Christian nationalism, or not,” McCord says, referring to far-right groups. “That permission that he started giving back in 2016 and 2017 is just even greater permission now.”

On this week’s More To The Story, McCord sits down with host Al Letson to talk about Patriot Front’s origins, a decade of growing white nationalism in America, and the troubling direction of the US Department of Justice under the Trump administration.

Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app, and don’t forget to subscribe.

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Trump Administration Moves to Open American Samoa’s Waters to Deep-Sea Mining

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The Trump administration is moving closer to opening up US waters for deep-sea mining—a contentious and largely untested industry focused on extracting mineral-rich deposits from the ocean floor containing cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese.

Last week, the Department of the Interior’s newly created Marine Minerals Administration (MMA) announced a proposal to hold a lease sale for deep-sea mining activities in federal waters off the coast of American Samoa in the South Pacific. If the plans move forward, it would be the first deep-sea mining lease sale in the world. Interested deep-sea mining companies could bid for 20 years of mining rights across more than 31 million acres of American Samoa’s outer continental shelf in an auction tentatively scheduled for November 19, 2026.

The announcement has drawn widespread criticism from environmental advocates and scientists who say any deep-sea mining activities, including preliminary exploratory activities, could pose irreparable harm to the marine environment and the American Samoan people, whose culture and livelihoods are deeply entwined with the ocean.

“Pacific people have made our position clear: we do not want deep-sea mining in our waters,” Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka, founder of Finafinau, an environmental advocacy group in American Samoa, said in a press release. “Our ocean is our home, our food, our culture, and our future, and we are calling on the Administration to stop this reckless lease sale before irreversible harm is done.”

The proposal marks the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to pave the way for deep-sea mining in the US and abroad. Since President Donald Trump signed an executive order last April directing federal agencies to fast-track the issuance of seabed mining permits, the government has sought to position the US as a leader of the emerging industry, despite global opposition.

Supporters of deep-sea mining say critical minerals found on the seafloor may be eventually used to manufacture green technologies and military defense systems.

“It is an incredibly reckless and destructive move to deep seabed mine in this area.”

“Critical minerals have become a strategic asset in global competition, and China’s dominance in the supply of many of these materials creates unacceptable risks for America’s energy, defense and manufacturing sectors,” said Matt Giacona, acting director of the Marine Minerals Administration, in a statement about the latest proposed lease sale. “Advancing this notice is an important step toward building a secure domestic critical minerals supply chain, strengthening US economic and national security, and ensuring America can compete and win in the 21st century.”

But deep-sea mining has not yet been conducted at a commercial scale anywhere in the world. There are still no formalized regulations to govern the industry in the US or globally.

In fact, global delegates are gathering this month in Kingston, Jamaica, at the International Seabed Authority to continue negotiating a long-debated Mining Code that would regulate activities related to extracting deep-sea minerals, including prospecting, exploration, and commercial exploitation in international waters.

Forging ahead without such regulations in place and paving the way for future mining near American Samoa will inevitably result in harm to critical marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them, said Taryn Kiekow Heimer, a senior attorney and director for ocean energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“It is an incredibly reckless and destructive move to deep seabed mine in this area,” she said.

In a statement to Inside Climate News, the MMA wrote that “plans will not be approved before completion of additional technical and environmental reviews to ensure that the activities described will be carried out in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.”

Directly adjacent to the proposed lease area is the Rose Atoll, a national wildlife refuge and marine national monument that was established by President George W. Bush in 2009.

For generations, the remote coral atoll served as a waypoint for Polynesian navigators, and it is still highly revered amongst Indigenous peoples in the Pacific as part of their cultural heritage.

Activities associated with deep sea mining would likely disrupt this precious interconnected ecosystem.

From an ecological standpoint, this atoll is extremely important, said Alan Friedlander, an affiliate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, based at the University of Hawaii, who conducted a survey of the area with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in the early 2000s.

“It’s one of the last largely intact marine ecosystems that we have under US jurisdiction,” Friedlander said.

Its remote location and protected status have allowed its colorful reefs to flourish even as others around the world suffer from global warming and threats like overfishing, dredging, and pollution. The corals are largely nourished by nutrients deposited by thousands of seabirds that nest on the remote atoll’s two islands. Sharks and other apex predators are abundant in surrounding waters, as are giant clams, which are now scarce throughout much of the Pacific due to overharvesting. Migrating humpbacks pass by the atoll, and critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles also nest on its shores.

Activities associated with deep-sea mining would likely disrupt this precious interconnected ecosystem, Friedlander said. That includes everything from increased shipping traffic and underwater noise to sediment plumes generated by some of the machinery that is needed to extract mineral deposits from the seabed.

“We probably should take the precautionary approach to this, and try to understand this complex ecosystem better before we go into activities that potentially have pretty long-term deleterious effects,” he said.

There are still several steps that must be completed before the Marine Minerals Administration finalizes the decision to hold a mining lease sale, including the publication of a final leasing notice.

“Issuance of the notice does not guarantee that a lease sale will be held, nor does it guarantee that any exploration or collection activities will occur should MMA move forward with a sale,” officials said in a public statement.

American Samoa’s governor, Pula’ali’i Nikolao Pula, has 60 days to review and comment on the proposed leasing notice.

“The governor does have a chance to object during these next 60 days,” said Kiekow Heimer.

In the meantime, the governor has encouraged his constituents to share their thoughts on deep-sea mining and any recommendations they have.

“This is an opportunity for our community to provide informed input,” Gov. Pula said in a statement. “I remain steadfast in my position that any such development must be fully transparent, responsible, science-based, and carefully managed to protect our environment, safeguard our vital tuna fisheries and cultural heritage, and deliver meaningful, tangible benefits for the people of American Samoa.”

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The IRS Is Imploding

In many years of paying taxes, I’ve never had a problem with the IRS. So, I was surprised to receive a letter dated May 25 informing us that my husband and I owelots more money than we had paid for our 2025 taxes—and of course interest and fines. After reviewing the somewhat cryptic letter, we realized that we did not, in fact, owe any money. The IRS had simply failed to credit quarterly payments thatwe’d made on time. Because we had all the bank records, it seemed as if this would be a relatively straightforward problem to fix—until I picked up the phone and called the IRS.

Two hours on hold later, I gave up. When I tried again a few days later, the outgoing message informed me, “Due to the high call volume, we are unable to answer your call. Please call back later today or tomorrow.” And I was disconnected. After several more fruitless phone calls over the next week, I asked my accountant for advice. Unfortunately, she said, the dedicated lines for tax practitioners were going unanswered, too. She had never seen it so bad. She had clients who had serious issues to resolve, and there was “no contact available at all.”

At that point, I realized the IRS was finally imploding.

Tax professionals, journalists—including those from Mother Jones—members of Congress and former IRS commissioners had warned this would happen. When Elon Musk’s DOGE service swept into the federal government like a buzzsaw in February last year, one of the first agencies it targeted for wholesale destruction was the IRS. DOGE slashed about a third of the entire IRS workforce in just a few short months. The agency hasn’t had a confirmed commissioner since August last year.

“When, literally overnight, you lose that many people, you’re losing leadership,” former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told my colleague Michael Mechanic last year. “You really are disabling the IRS.”

“You can’t get rid of 30 percent of your staff and expect to be functional. Things are starting to break.”

In October, the administration created what members of Congress have dubbed the “fake job” of IRS CEO, which Congress never authorized. Trump filled the post with former finance executive Frank Bisignano, even though he is simultaneously in charge of the Social Security Administration.

At an April congressional hearing, Bisignano assured lawmakers that IRS customer service had not suffered at all from the sudden, massive cuts in its workforce. He called 2026 “the most successful filing season in IRS history” and claimed that the Trump administration was proving it was possible to have both “less people and better results.”

My experience, that of many other taxpayers and tax professionals I have spoken with over the past month, as well as the IRS’s own data, suggest otherwise. “You can’t get rid of 30 percent of your staff and expect to be functional,” says Traci DiMartini, the former IRS human capital officer who was one of the first high-ranking officials DOGE pushed out last year. “Things are starting to break.”

Members of Congress have also started to notice. “The Administration laid off close to a third of the IRS workforce, sabotaging its mission, and making it impossible to get someone on the phone to answer even the simplest of questions, let alone resolve issues,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), ranking member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement to Mother Jones. “Yet this Administration refuses to acknowledge the predictable consequences of gutting an agency and keeps telling taxpayers not to believe what they are experiencing.”

Contacting the IRS has never been easy. The agency has been badly underfunded for decades, as Republicans have made it the bête noir of the federal government and starved it for resources. Several of them, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have called to abolish the IRS outright. “There are 93,000 agents at the IRS,” he said in June. “I think we should put a padlock on that building and put every one of them down on our southern border.” (His numbers were actually outdated: Thanks to the DOGE cuts, as of January 2026, the IRS had fewer than 75,000 employees, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration.)

In 2022, under President Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress pushed through the Inflation Reduction Act, a kitchen-sink bit of legislation that included some $80 billion over 10 years to shore up and modernize the IRS. The new funding allowed the agency to hire and train thousands of new customer service employees.

Republicans like Cruz, who have long believed that the IRS has unfairly targeted conservatives, immediately launched a conspiracy theory suggesting that Biden was going to use the money to hire a shadow army of 87,000 armed agents to harass innocent Americans. They eventually clawed back most of that funding, but the IRS nonetheless invested what remained in trying to make life better for ordinary taxpayers. In 2024, the service answered more than 1 million more calls from taxpayers during filing season than it had the previous year, and reduced the average hold time from 28 minutes to 3, according to IRS data.

Since Trump took office, all of those metrics have reversed, particularly after the DOGE workforce cuts fully took effect in October. “It’s infinitely worse in 2026 than it was in 2025,” says Richard Champion, a New Jersey lawyer who has practiced tax law for nearly 50 years and represents low-income taxpayers in federal tax court pro bono. When he used to call the IRS practitioner line, he says he used to be able to get into the call-back queue so he didn’t have to sit on hold for hours. That option is increasingly unavailable. Now even when he does manage to reach someone, he says, they are often new and can’t help, so they forward him to someone else, and those calls inevitably get dropped. “I have at least four or five cases where I’m just stymied,” he says.

“There are some days I will literally be on the phone with the IRS five or six hours. And that’s because my call dropped, so I’m calling back again. It’s horrible. It’s the worst that I’ve seen.”

Sakinah Tillman runs the tax clinic at the University of the District of Columbia’s David Clark School of Law. She has worked with low-income taxpayers for more than a decade and says a few years ago, she’d get someone on the phone in 15 minutes. Now, however, “There are some days I will literally be on the phone with the IRS five or six hours,” she told me. “And that’s because my call dropped, so I’m calling back again. It’s horrible. It’s the worst that I’ve seen.” Even more troubling, she told me, is that the managers have all but disappeared. “Every time I’ve been making a request for a manager in the last year,” she said, “I’m not getting a call back.”

These aren’t just anecdotal one-offs. A June report to Congress from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent agency within the IRS, found that live humans answered 20 percent fewer calls during this year’s tax filing season and that hold times jumped anywhere from 81 to 161 percent, depending on the line called. Only 17 percent of the calls handled by the “voicebot” system were completed. Most callers got frustrated and either asked to be transferred to a live person or hung up.

The worst service came on phone lines dedicated to people who owed money and needed help, such as an installment plan. Live operators answered only 30 percent of more than 3 million such calls this year between January and April 18. Those lucky taxpayers who got through waited an average of 45 minutes on hold.

The nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights this year also conducted its own research on how bad the IRS call responsiveness has gotten. The group discovered that the government’s own measurements showed that wait times increased more than 70 percent in 2026, even though the agency received 50 percent fewer calls to its main 1040 help line than during the previous year. CTR testers then called various IRS phone numbers and found that nearly 40 percent of the calls were disconnected—mostly by the IRS.

Nina Olson, the executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, ran the Taxpayer Advocate Service inside the IRS for nearly 20 years. She spent a day on hold herself during filing season as part of the study. Since then, she says, the service has likely gotten even worse because the IRS had shuffled staff to cover the phones during that busy time. “Where I deal is the morning after,” she said. “The morning after April 16.” Which is exactly when people like me start getting threatening notices from the IRS and can’t get anyone to pick up the phone. “There’s no one there,” Olson said.

During my many hours on hold with the IRS, the outgoing phone messages encouraged me to try to resolve my issues online. But when I logged into my IRS account, I discovered this message: “Account features limited due to partial outage. While you can still access your account, some features are unavailable, including account balance and payment history. If you don’t see what you need, please come back later.” After more than a month of coming back later, I still couldn’t access my payment history.

Tech problems have been a persistent problem at the chronically underfunded revenue service, which is why Biden’s IRA had allocated money for upgrades. Fixing IT problems, though, requires actual humans to do the work. Last year, the Trump administration pushed out more than 40 percent of the agency’s IT department. Most of the remaining employees were moved to Bisignano’s office or deployed to answer the phones during the greatest filing season of all time. Needless to say, the tech-forward team at DOGE did not improve the IRS technology.

Stephanie Liuzzi, a seismic engineer in California, got a letter from the IRS this year saying her tax payment had been rejected because of a problem with the bank account number on her return. The letter instructed her how to pay online, which she did. But in May, she got another letter saying that not only does she still owe money, but she now also owes penalties. After hours on hold with the IRS, she finally reached someone who confirmed that she had in fact paid her bill. But that person couldn’t waive the penalties and transferred Liuzzi to another line for help, where no one ever picked up. “I think everyone just went home,” she told me.

“It is currently refusing to let me reset my password. It keeps trying to send a text to a cell phone I had years ago. I have emailed in scans of my ID, my passport, but without access to that phone, it won’t let me in.”

After many more fruitless calls, she finally paid an $8 penalty online, but she hasn’t been able to confirm that her case is resolved because she can’t access her online account. “It is currently refusing to let me reset my password,” she told me. “It keeps trying to send a text to a cell phone I had years ago. I have emailed in scans of my ID, my passport, but without access to that phone, it won’t let me in.”

As the deadline for responding to my IRS letter rapidly approached and I continued to fail to reach anyone on the phone, I thought perhaps I could try to seek assistance in person at one of the IRS’s Taxpayer Assistance Centers. The Inflation Reduction Act had included funding to expand them, but the Trump administration has cut the number of fully staffed TACs to 42, from 102, according to a report by the Taxpayer Advocate. But the one where I live is still open, so I was hopeful—until I discovered that taxpayers can’t just walk in without an appointment. And the only way to make an appointment? Call the IRS.

I never got an appointment.

DiMartini, the former IRS human resources chief, has a vivid memory of her first time volunteering to help people with their taxes at a walk-in clinic in Philadelphia in 2024. “It was so humbling,” she recalled. DiMartini encountered lines of people around the block who had been victims of identity theft or unscrupulous tax preparers and women whose ex-husbands had illegally claimed their kids on his taxes. “What are these people going to do now?” she wonders. “As much as the tech bros want to automate everything, you still have to meet people where they’re at. People just want to pay their goddam bills. Why are we making it so hard?”

The IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service can help people cut through the bureaucracy, but Trump has decimated that office, too. Barbara Heggie, the managing attorney of Empire Justice Center’s Tax Advocacy Program in Rochester, NY, told me that now, when she really gets stonewalled by the IRS, she goes straight to Congress. “Every congressional office has staff who work on constituent services dealing with federal agency problems,” she said, “including IRS problems.”

“As much as the tech bros want to automate everything, you still have to meet people where they’re at. People just want to pay their goddam bills. Why are we making it so hard?”

Sadly, I am a disenfranchised resident of the District of Columbia, where we are taxed without representation. The closest thing we have to a member of Congress is Eleanor Holmes Norton, an 89-year-old nonvoting delegate with the same power as someone from Guam. Last year, I wrote about her mental deterioration and figured no one in her office would lift a finger to help resolve my tax issues, even if they did such things.

All of these roadblocks left me with one final option: snail mail.

The US Post Office is the last resort for the ever-growing cadre of people who can’t get through the IRS phone lines. Of course, the Trump administration has also gutted the IRS mail room—with predictable results. According to a recent report by the Taxpayer Advocate, the number of unprocessed correspondence and amended returns languishing at the IRS jumped from 3.8 million in 2025 to 7 million this year. “And that was before all the people like you were sending in letters,” CTR’s Nina Olson told me.

The Biden administration had been making some headway in reducing the mail backlog after it had reached epic proportions during the Covid pandemic. With funding from the IRA, the tax agency was able to staff up critical chokepoints in the system, including the mailroom. Charles Garn was one of the recruits hired in 2024 to work at the massive Ogden, Utah, IRS service center, where he was on the frontline opening the mail and sorting and processing 1040 forms and other correspondence from taxpayers.

Almost as soon as he finished his training, DOGE pushed him out. He left in October, along with thousands of other IRS workers who’d taken the “deferred resignation” plan that paid them not to work for three months and then essentially fired them. But he was there long enough to see first-hand the impact of “crippling” staff losses.

When Garn first started, his division would get a massive delivery of papers first thing in the morning. “We’d wipe it all out by the end of the day,” he explained. By the time the staffing cuts had fully kicked in, “We weren’t clearing out the deliveries. People were working harder and pumping out more, but we still weren’t able to meet what we needed to.”

The IRS might not be opening a lot of the mail it receives, but somehow it’s still sending it out. Even before the deadline to respond to my first letter had passed, the IRS sent me a new one reminding me that I have a past-due balance. “If you don’t act now, the IRS may consider levying (seizing) your income or bank account,” my newest missive warned.

The letter was a stark reminder that the collapse of the IRS customer service functions isn’t just an occasional annoyance for taxpayers. It can literally ruin people’s lives. If a taxpayer fails to respond to letters like the ones I got, and to pay an outstanding balance, even if it’s wrong, the IRS can eventually garnish their wages, seize bank accounts, or even take their cars or houses to settle the bill.

These consequences land heavily on those who can least afford it: the elderly, people whose first language is not English, and of course, poor people of all sorts. “Clients don’t have scanners,” says Tillman, who says a lot of correspondence with the IRS now requires such things. “Some don’t have laptops, or if they do, they don’t know how to use them.”

Low-income people are also particularly vulnerable to fraud. “Tax season is one of the most vulnerable times for low-income taxpayers because you have crooked preparers that prey on them,” Tillman says. She usually sees these clients after they get a letter from the IRS ordering them to repay thousands of dollars of the refund they weren’t entitled to.

The Trump administration’s destruction of the IRS has other less obvious harms—even beyond the nearly $900 billion in revenue it won’t be able to collect over the next decade thanks to the staffing cuts. “A lot of the anti-poverty structure of the safety net is embedded in the tax code,” explains Omeed Firouzi, director of the low-income tax clinic at Temple University law school.

The Earned Income Tax Credit, child tax credit, plus the new provisions in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that exempted tips, overtime and some Social Security payments from taxes—all of that requires people to accurately file a tax return. At the same time, the Big Beautiful Bill also made massive cuts to anti-poverty programs like SNAP and Medicaid, making the credits provided through the tax code even more important.

The Trump administration seems to have grudgingly recognized that the IRS needs more people, if only to collect taxes to pay for its ruinous war in Iran. In February, the Treasury Department gave the IRS permission to hire 8,000 people through September. “These hiring events are an important step in strengthening our workforce and improving the taxpayer experience,” Bisignano said in a June press release announcing a series of hiring fairs across the country.

“Kudos for that, but no one is showing up [to the fairs] because they don’t trust the federal government,” says DiMartini. “It is going to take decades to recover.”

In the meantime, I worked on this story one day to the backdrop of IRS hold music. After an hour and a half of waiting, I stayed on the phone while I went to Sweetgreen and got lunch, ate my salad while I watched Todd Blanche testify before Congress, and then at the two-hour mark … got disconnected.

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EPA Ordered—Again—to Release $2.8 Billion in Climate Justice Funds

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A South Carolina federal judge this week ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to resume distributing funds designed to address environmental and health challenges in underserved communities.

In June, US District Judge Richard Gergel voided the Trump administration’s termination of the $2.8 billion Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program. But the court ruling did not explicitly require the Environmental Protection Agency to resume distributing the block grants.

Although Gergel ruled that the government’s internal actions terminating the grants were “unlawful,” he declined to order the EPA to immediately restart the program, saying such a move would be “impractical.”

Last month, emails between the EPA and the Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuit in partnership with the Public Rights Project, showed that government officials believed that no “specific agency action is required to comply” with Gergel’s ruling.

After reviewing additional court filings from both sides, Gergel confirmed this week that the EPA must resume distributing the grant funds. He rejected the Trump administration’s argument that his decision “required no further agency action.”

“When federal agencies ignore court orders, communities pay the price.”

In his latest order, Gergel wrote that the Trump administration’s interpretation of the initial ruling relied on an interpretation of the facts the court had already “specifically rejected.”

“The court made it clear that EPA has to follow the law, not keep making the same arguments the court has already rejected,” Toby Merrill, the litigation director for Public Rights Project, said in an email. “When federal agencies ignore court orders, communities pay the price.”

Gergel ordered that the agency “must comply with its statutory obligations to administer the [Environmental and Climate Justice] Program” through the end of September, when the grants were originally scheduled to expire under President Joe Biden.

Since the latest order was issued, Kym Meyer, the Southern Environmental Law Center’s litigation director, said her organization “hasn’t heard” from the EPA.

The Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program, created under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, was designed to help communities address problems like air pollution and extreme heat and bolster local infrastructure, according to federal budget documents.

“While the EPA has tried to evade the court’s order, families in north Mecklenburg were left waiting for basic transparency about the air they breathe.”

At the start of his current term, President Donald Trump issued executive orders that put the disbursement of Inflation Reduction Act funds on hold and directed agencies to eliminate environmental justice offices and positions, to the maximum extent allowed by law. An EPA official told the court that he decided to terminate the program in February 2025 because of “policy reasons,” court documents show.

One $500,000 grant was intended to help CleanAIRE NC, a North Carolina-based nonprofit, install air quality monitors throughout Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte. Residents there face health impacts from air pollution because of their proximity to major highways and industrial activity.

“While the EPA has tried to evade the court’s order, families in north Mecklenburg were left waiting for basic transparency about the air they breathe,” said Jeffrey Robbins, the executive director of CleanAIRE NC, in an email. “We are ready to put these critical air monitoring resources to work in north Mecklenburg the moment the agency complies.”

In response to questions from Inside Climate News, a spokesperson for the EPA said in an email that the agency “is reviewing the decision and working to comply with the court’s order.”

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It Looks Like Sen. Bill Cassidy Is Hurting Public Health Again

When Sen. Bill Cassidy on Thursday expressed his support for Erica Schwartz, President Trump’s pick for CDC director, he signaled that he may once again cast a critical vote for a candidate that poses a risk to US public health.

At her confirmation hearing earlier this month, Schwartz, who has a medical degree,sidestepped questions on whether she would resist pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to carry out policies that she believed contradicted scientific evidence.

After this, Cassidy, a physician and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, withheld his support of Schwartz. But on Thursday, he pivoted, telling committee members: “I’m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not.” The Louisiana senator said he now trusts Schwartz after they spoke privately, and after federal officials made a “good faith” change to the CDC’s website that linked vaccines and autism. The webpage still cites the retracted study that makes this vaccine-autism link, and now includes an asterisk with a note that “Scientists have not identified the root causes of autism.”

The page also still states that “studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” This idea has been disproven by decades of scientific research.

In a Sunday interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Cassidy admitted that this version ofthe website is not, in fact, a “good faith” attempt to stop spreading vaccine misinformation. But he added that parents probably don’t look at that CDC webpage anyway:“I’ve never met a parent who wasn’t a pediatrician who’s gone into the website to look for information about vaccines.”

BASH: When you pledged to support Dr. Schwartz, you said it's a sign of good faith the CDC agreed to modify their website. But the CDC's vaccine page still says 'the claim vaccines do not cause autism is not evidence-based.' Is that a good faith attempt to stop spreading misinfo?CASSIDY: It is not

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-07-26T13:56:56.113Z

In response, Bash noted that the CDC sets public health policy, which makes it likely parents do seek guidance from the agency.

Cassidy responded that he is continuing to discuss the CDC’s stance on vaccines with the health department, and that they have made additionalconcessions,but did not disclose what those were.

Cassidy’s pivot on Schwartz echoes his actions last year, when he cast the deciding vote in favor of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health secretary. Cassidy had initially withheld support for RFK given the Trump ally’s statements that vaccines are unsafe. But Cassidy changed his mindafter receiving assurances from Kennedy that he would work within existing vaccine approval and safety systems and would collaborate with Cassidy—promises that implied Kennedy would not undermine vaccine access.

Since then, Kennedy has done the opposite, turning fringe conspiracy theories about vaccine safety into health policy—including cutting nearly $500 million in research funding for mRNA vaccines, the vaccine technology used in many COVID vaccines.

Cassidy directed the Senate health committee to delay a vote on Thursday on whether to advance Schwartz’s nomination following Republican attendance issues. They are expected to vote next week.

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The US Pause in Iran War Escalation Probably Won’t Last

The Trump administration has paused its latest, 13-night bombing campaign on Iran,reportedly following concerns within the administrationover the past few days about American military resources and casualties.

The dwindling amount of US air defense munitions was a key concern, administration officials told the New York Times, as well as hurting relations with allies in the Gulf and worsening economic, energy, and refugee crises. A senior US official stated that three US soldiers were killed in Jordan just over a week ago when a ballistic missile passed through US air defenses.

This pause in fighting comes after a relentless stream of suffering for Iranian civilians following US bombing. The Iranian health ministry’s spokesperson, Hossein Kermanpour, said on Friday that US strikes have killed 59 people—including six women and three people under the age of 18—over the past month. And as I wrote last week, the US military bombing has destroyed key infrastructure that Iranians need to survive, such as water and energy facilities, food silos, and bridges.

When a reporter asked Trump on Friday whether striking civilian sites constituted a war crime, the president refused to answer—not the first time he has dismissed the suggestion that the devastation of his administration’s strikes are war crimes.

On Sunday, Mike Waltz, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, told NBC News’ Meet the Press that the pause in airstrikes gives “some space” fornegotiationbetween the US and Iran.

Still, past precedent suggests that the administration’s Iran strike pause may not last: Since the US and Israel first struck Iran in February, the Trump administration has several times stopped fighting to negotiate, only to later escalate the war again. This may be because, as Michael Froman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan US foreign policy think tank, wrote on Friday, Trump is taking a middle-ground, simultaneous military and diplomacy approach to prevent extreme political fallout. He wants to avoid complete targeting of Iranian critical infrastructure and seizing oil with a military invasion or concedingto Iranian control of oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

In June, the US and Iran managed to strike an interim ceasefire deal. Just a couple of days later, Iran’s military closed the Strait of Hormuz, stating the US violated their agreement by allowing Israel to continue bombing Lebanon. Iran then began targeting ships passing through the strait, including those appearing to deviate from approved routes, prompting US airstrikes on Iran at the end of the month.

The US faces other obstacles to negotiating a lasting solution: Nate Swanson, the National Security Council’s former Iran director under Joe Biden, told me last month that the US government’s material and political support of Israel has ruined many of its relationships with countries in the Gulf region and made negotiations with Iran practically impossible.

All this means that it is unlikely this war will end soon. When_Meet the Press’_ Kristen Welker asked Waltz whether the war would end by the end of the year, the ambassador refused to give a timeline. Last week, Democrats called on Trump to end the war, citing the deaths of four American soldiers. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who brought a war powers resolutions aimed at forcing the president to abandon the war that failed on Thursday, wrote on X shortly before the vote, “This senseless war should never have been started and it needs to end NOW.”

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It Took a Decade, Two Sniffer Dogs, and a Lot of Mud to Protect This Orchid

This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Arizona’s rarest orchid, when not in bloom, resembles a blade of grass. It vanishes easily in the lush greenery of the Canelo Hills Cienega Preserve—even to the eyes of the botanists who plant it.

On a mild April morning, after a decade of preparation, a group of scientists gathered at a desert wetland cradled in southern Arizona’s hills to reintroduce a federally endangered orchid. Aside from the researchers’ chatter, the only sounds were water trickling from a spring and boots squelching through mud.

Steve Blackwell, conservation biologist at the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG), ventured into the wetland, using tussocks of grass as stepping-stones. He wanted to see if a small test plot of orchids planted months before had survived. He returned at a run, fists pumping the air. “I found one!”

The rest of the team, made up of orchid experts from DBG and the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC), followed him to a soil moisture sensor stuck into the boggy ground. He pulled aside sedges and grasses to reveal a thin, grass-like leaf.

“We did it, guys,” NAOCC technician Hope Brooks said.

“Now we just gotta do 360 more,” Blackwell replied.

“Desert wetland” sounds like a contradiction. Known regionally as ciénegas, they’re pockets of green in an arid landscape, fed by freshwater springs. They’re among the rarest habitats in the Southwestern United States, making up just a tiny fraction of the landscape but home to a vast array of species.

The Canelo Hills ladies’-tresses, one of the most endangered orchids in the United States, contributes to that diversity. But only a few hundred remain in the wild, and none had been seen at the Canelo Hills Cienega Preserve, where the species was first documented in a scientific publication, since the early 2000s.

In 2020, the US Fish and Wildlife Service asked DBG botanists whether they could grow the orchid from seed. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure I can,’” Blackwell said, chuckling at his own confidence. “I love getting these problems that are difficult and then trying to work through them.”

The first challenge was locating the remaining wild orchids; there were only two known populations, both in southern Arizona. Canelo Hills ladies’-tresses bloom in late summer, sending up a stalk spiraled with white flowers. The rest of the year, they’re essentially invisible. The team had to recruit two specially trained “ecology detection” dogs to sniff them out.

The seeds are minuscule, optimized for wind dispersal. “They’re like dust,” said ecologist Melissa McCormick, who directs NAOCC. “They don’t have nutrients in them to support the developing seeds.” Instead, baby orchids draw their nourishment from a particular type of mycorrhizal fungus.

“When you lose one ciénega, you’re losing something that really can’t be replaced.”

Enter the second challenge: cultivating the right fungus in a laboratory. Researchers at NAOCC, a program of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland, led this task. They scrubbed orchid roots with toothbrushes and shaved off tiny pieces under a microscope. “All the little balls of fungus pop out,” McCormick said, enabling researchers to cultivate them in petri dishes. The ladies’-tresses, grown in glass flasks, can germinate with a substitute supply of nutrients, but they sprout much faster with a dab of lab-grown fungus.

The scientists also checked for the presence of Sonoran bumblebees at the Canelo Hills to ensure the orchids would have a pollinator, and they conducted a prescribed burn to push back trees encroaching on the wetland. All these pieces had to come together to give the reintroduction a chance. But McCormick rejected orchids’ fragile reputation: “They can grow in really tough conditions.”

Including, apparently, underwater. The team was surprised to find one of the test orchids fully submerged and still green. Fine silt clouded the water as the researchers rooted around, feeling for the metal tags that marked the planting locations.

Ultimately, the scientists located seven of the 20 orchids in the test plot; the others may have died, gone dormant, or simply remained hidden. Reassured, the team set to work planting hundreds more, enough to test different restoration techniques. The first question: Can orchids thrive if they go straight from flask to ground, or do they need to spend some time potted in soil first?

Another variable is the fungus, which occurs naturally in some parts of the ciénega. This first batch of orchids was grown without the aid of the laboratory-cultivated fungus, which the plants need in the soil. The researchers placed fungus-inoculated cotton balls in the planting holes with some of the orchids. Others got cotton balls without fungus or nothing at all, to see whether the orchids grow better with a fungal boost. And they planted some orchids in a part of the wetland where tests didn’t turn up the right fungus in the ground. Would the fungus-spiked cotton balls open up new habitat for ladies’-tresses?

DBG conservation researcher Luis Romero lifted the first orchid out of its pot, brushed dirt from its roots, and put it on a scale. It was too light to register, so he counted the plant’s leaves and roots instead as a baseline to measure its growth later on. Brooks recorded the data while Romero improvised a pair of forceps out of charcuterie skewers and poked a cotton ball into the mud. The orchid sprout followed, and a peaty, plant-rot smell rose from the disturbed earth. It was the first of 15 orchids planted in a half-meter-by-half-meter square, all part of one experimental treatment.

In July, the team will return to check the results. Blackwell, half-jokingly, said he dreamed of returning to “a field of just white flowers.” But Romero said he will consider the project a success even if only a few orchids survive. At this early stage, both failures and successes provide lessons for future attempts. He aims to develop a blueprint for orchid reintroduction: a protocol that can be adopted by other institutions.

Julie Stromberg, an Arizona plant ecologist who wasn’t involved with the reintroduction project, echoed Romero’s emphasis on good experimental design. That way, even if a project’s orchids don’t survive, she said, “at least you’re going to learn something about what’s driving the system and why it’s failing.”

“[Restoration] can take a long time, but you just need to start the healing.”

Ciénegas face many threats, including climate change, drought, groundwater pumping, diversions of spring water, overgrazing and fire suppression. Trees have overtaken many places, consuming water that used to sustain wetland flora. Human developments, such as roads and culverts, also take a toll. “A lot of these ciénegas, as a whole, have blinked out,” Stromberg said.

Because ciénegas are so isolated, they’re all different. Each holds a unique mix of rare species. “When you lose one ciénega, you’re losing something that really can’t be replaced,” she said.

Tracing the causes of a ciénega’s decline is part science, part detective work. Upstream from the orchid-planting site, DBG botanist Andrew Salywon pointed out a roughly 10-foot-deep drop in a creek bed. It was a headcut, a site of dramatic erosion that would continue to carve its way upstream, deepening the creek as it goes. In a healthy wetland, water slows down and spreads out. A deep channel has the opposite effect.

“Historically, this probably was all wetland vegetation,” Salywon said, gesturing at the tree stumps on the streambanks. Now, it’s an example of a dying ciénega.

Headcutting happens in natural cycles but is worsened by extreme rainfall, which is becoming more frequent in a climate-changed world. It may also be a sign of the preserve’s ranchland history: Long-abandoned culverts and berms still capture and channelize water, which can cause headcuts and other erosion.

Years ago, while surveying for orchids, Salywon noticed the 10-foot headcut and decided to try to save this ciénega. Restoring fire, removing trees, and remediating earthworks are all part of that rescue effort. But Salywon acknowledged this damaged area may never recover enough to support ladies’-tresses—at least, not in his lifetime. Restoration, he said, “can take a long time, but you just need to start the healing.”

The new orchids, if they survive, will help cushion shocks to existing populations. They are currently the only ones known to be living on protected land; the Canelo Hills preserve was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 1969 and is now closed to the public.

The researchers hope one day to expand the project to surrounding ranchland. Light grazing, like fire, may benefit these orchids by knocking back competing vegetation.

Curt Bernal, owner of the neighboring Z Triangle Ranch, said he welcomes opportunities to aid the restoration effort. For any rare plant, he said, “it’s incumbent upon us humans to do what it takes to make sure they continue to exist long after we’re gone.”

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The Year Climate Change Came for the Tour de France

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Tadej Pogačar is expected to ride to victory on the Champs-Élysées in Paris when the Tour de France ends Sunday. While his commanding performance has left little doubt about the outcome, the journey to the finale has been remarkable for another reason: climate change.

The grueling 23-day trek through France has seen a barrage of emissions-driven extremes, from wildfires to blistering heat. It was so dry at one point that organizers banned TV crews from a French pastime, smoking. Pogačar even suggested that the race, which has almost always spanned late June and early July, no longer occur during the summer.

“If I had the power,” he said, “I would change all the calendar and not race in July and August in hot places.”

“I’ve never seen weather conditions this hot every single day.”

The trouble started earlier this month when wildfires threatened the Pyrénées-Orientales region during the third stage, as each day’s race is called. Organizers considered cancelling it, but decided it would continue. Still, they limited the caravan that typically follows it to essential vehicles. They also asked fans, a fixture along every route, to stay away from the last 27 miles of the day’s 121-mile race.

“We invite the public not to come to the edge of the race or to the finish site,” race director Christian Prudhomme told France TV. “With exceptional fires, exceptional measures on the Tour, the first thing is the protection of the people.”

The more persistent problem has been a record-breaking European heatwave. According to ProCyclingStats.com, the first two weeks of the Tour brought the highest average temperature of the past two decades: 87 degrees F, compared to 79 degrees in 2022.

“I’ve never seen weather conditions this hot every single day,” said XDS-Astana Team sports director Yvon Ledanois. “It isn’t a case of having one extremely hot day and then returning to normal conditions the next.”

Things got so bad that race organizers shortened one leg for the first time in Tour history .

Enduring such heat for one race would be rough, but each of the 21 stages is effectively a race of its own. Competitors ride an average of about 100 miles daily for the better part of three weeks, and it isn’t unusual to see them maintain speeds around 30 mph for hours at a time. Much of the Tour crosses the Alps and Pyrenees, with treacherous climbs. Through it all, riders get just two days of rest.

That kind of prolonged exertion during extreme heat can be dangerous, even for athletes with the specialized training required to complete the Tour. Pogačar reported having a “full headache” at the start of Stage 4 as temperatures topped 100 degrees. Officials relaxed their rules around food and hydration, and one team said each of its riders was drinking around 28 bottles of water every day, which is several times the norm. Many also wore “ice vests” before the start of each day’s ride, and “ice socks” during it. Things got so bad that race organizers shortened one leg for the first time in Tour history when they cut 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Stage 9. The government told regional officials they could cancel them entirely in the event of a red heatwave alert.

Even when the sun went down, the respite was minimal. Temperatures didn’t ease much, and many European hotels do not have air conditioning. “When we have these high nighttime temperatures, the body isn’t able to recover sufficiently,” Kurt Shickman, who works on heat issues at the World Resources Institute, told Grist when asked about early July’s heatwave. “They’re going into the next hot day with a couple strikes against you from a health perspective.”

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Trump’s Push to Build Data Centers for the US Military

If you live near a military base, there’s a chance you’ll soon find that a privately owned data center has moved into your area. A year ago, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Defense to lease land to private developers for this purpose. “You can’t fight it,” Trump said this week of data centers, which have grown wildly unpopular.

Amid concerns about massive electricity use and pollution, data center buildout on military bases is happening at hyperspeed. In March of this year, two private developers—the Carlyle Group and CyrusOne—were selected to develop hyperscale data centers, built for cloud computing and AI, on federally owned land in Texas and Utah. The Department hasn’t explained where they’ll get their power, though—and as El Paso Matters reported recently, the proposed Texas data center alone could require more power than all of El Paso itself. Andin May, the DOD asked for an additional $30 billion to build hyperscale data centers that would, according to Defense One, “integrate largely untested hardware and software used to make life or death decisions into the military.”

Military spokespeople are framing this as critical to national security. “Nearly a century ago, President Roosevelt urged Americans to build the military infrastructure needed to preserve our democratic ideals during a time of profound global crisis,” Assistant Secretary of the Army Marc Andersen wrote in Fortune in June. “As we celebrate our country’s 250th anniversary, we once again find ourselves at a pivotal moment…The battlefield now begins long before the first shot is fired. It begins in mines, factories, power plants, laboratories, data centers, and logistics networks.”

As I’ve previously reported, the federal government is using national security to justify allocating billions of dollars to tech companies, including Elon Musk’s xAI. In one legal filing on behalf of xAI’s right to avoid permitting processes, Cameron Stanley, the Department of War’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, wrote that “Grok’s continued operation and availability is a matter of paramount national security.” The Department of War used Grok to “deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury,” he added. The Pentagon has paid Musk’s company at least $200 million for use of its technology.

Placing data centers on federal land may be a workaround for rising backlash over potential environmental harm caused by the facilities. Throughout the 20th century, under the legal doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” the federal government has historically exempted military bases from much pollution regulation by citing the primacy of national security. Bases such as Camp Lejeune in North Carolina have leaked volatile organic compounds, jet fuel, and heavy metals into nearby groundwater, rendering them what Abre’ Connor of the NAACP calls “sacrifice zones.”

Members of Congress across the political spectrum are raising questions about the military’s move into public-private data center partnerships. But Republican appropriators rejected several data-center-related amendments to a current Defense spending bill, including one from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) that would have fully prohibited the construction of AI data centers on federal lands, including military installations. (Tlaib later introduced that amendment as a standalone bill.)

The only regulatory provision that actually made it into the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2027 defense authorization bill was put forth by Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fl.) It would prohibit data centers built on military installations from using Chinese-built components. The Army said in a statement that Mills’ measure would create an “unworkable standard,” which would “drive world-class commercial partners—and over $1.3 billion in private capital—away from Army land.”

Individual bills like Tlaib’s, however, may still move forward. “Public lands should not be turned into sacrifice zones for the AI arms race,” said Shayna Lewis, Deputy Director of Win Without War, in a press release. “This bill is a wakeup call and a necessary safeguard that would protect communities from being forced to shoulder the energy, water, pollution, and infrastructure costs of systems designed to accelerate war-making and deepen the Pentagon’s deference to Big Tech.”

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How Fossil Fuel Companies Made Us Believe Gas Was Clean

About half of Americans think natural gas—a methane-based, planet-warming fuel—is a “clean” energy source, according to a recent poll. And a long-running fossil fuel industry marketing campaign might be to blame.

The “clean natural gas” label is a myth. Methane, the primary component of natural gas fuel, is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But the myth persists in large part due to a savvy, decades-long branding campaign by oil and gas corporations.

A new report released by the Center for Climate Integrity, a research and advocacy group, reveals that fossil fuel companies knew as early as the 1960s that branding gas as “clean” was deceptive.

An internal report from Shell in 1966 indicated that methane gas was released in “embarrassingly large quantities” at oil fields. And in 1968, a review sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute declared that methane in the atmosphere was connected to “oil fields,” and that methane seepage was “not unlikely.” So in response, fossil fuel companies sponsored and promoted their own research, founding entities like the Gas Research Institute to create an appearance of objectivity and change the narrative. They aimed to drown out research that indicated gas might be harmful to the environment or human health, the Center for Climate Integrity suggests.

Throughout the 1970s, the American Gas Association, a trade group, worked with public relations firms to sell gas as a “clean” and environmentally-friendly fossil fuel. The gas industry launched a public relations campaign in 1971 called “GAS, CLEAN ENERGY FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW.” A 1972 report from the American Gas Association (AGA) said the “environmental benefits of an adequate natural gas supply are outstanding,” in that it offered a “very positive answer” to collective concern about the planet.

As the report further details, by 1996, the AGA was co-running studies with the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal communications published in the report show that EPA officials said they “simply do not have the expertise” to independently review the data presented by the gas industry in the study and they were “unlikely to find problems even if they exist.” (The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the CCI report.)

The public-relations campaign was effective—and in the 2000s, with the advent of fracking, American natural gas-extraction infrastructure expanded dramatically. The companies building that infrastructure were sometimes even eligible for “green” fuel subsidies and tax breaks. Today, natural gas is still classed as “green” in at least four states. The gas-appliance industry, meanwhile, still lobbies relentlessly against labeling standards that might designate its products as harmful.

“Officials who continue to justify expanding natural gas reliance by still claiming it’s clean or safe for the climate are using the same script and manipulated science that gas executives and their PR teams concocted decades ago,” Center for Climate Integrity President Richard Wiles said in a statement published with the report. “It’s time that these profoundly dangerous lies are finally put to rest.”

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Trump’s EPA Wants Fewer People Asking Questions About Data Center Pollution

This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The Trump administration is quietly considering a rule change that could make it easier for polluters to build facilities—including certain gas plants and diesel generators that power data centers—with little to no notice to the public.

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency held a public hearing on a proposed rule change that would hand the power to states to decide how the public participates in the permitting process for certain new sources of air pollution. The proposed rollback comes as data centers face greater pushback across the US, with many communities using the permitting process to try to slow down development. Any changes could have major consequences for how ordinary people are given notice about new or expanded polluting facilities coming into their neighborhoods.

“As someone actively working in communities with data centers, I know this to be fundamentally true: People want to have a say,” Vanessa Lynch, a Pennsylvania organizer with Moms Clean Air Force, said at the EPA hearing.

“Georgia is an example of a place where I can say I’m concerned.”

Companies building any kind of facilities that release air pollution are required to get permits under the Clean Air Act. Polluting sources can either be put through a “major” permitting process, meaning that they meet or exceed thresholds for certain pollutants, or a “minor” one for those that don’t.

Major sources of pollution are reviewed by both federal and state regulators and have extensive requirements before and after construction. However, there’s less oversight of minor sources. The scope of what gets permitted as a minor source is extremely broad and can include everything from dry cleaners and auto body shops to diesel and gas engines. The latter two are increasingly being used to power data centers, with operators such as xAI and Meta using minor source permitting processes to build behind-the-meter gas plants.

The Clean Air Act does require the public to be involved in permitting processes; Congress has specified that major sources need to have several public steps, including a public hearing. EPA rules require some public participation for minor source permits. But thanks to a patchwork of state enforcement laws, that engagement process—and whether state agencies are actually complying with EPA requirements—varies across the US.

If the proposed rule is finalized, “it would put state and local agencies most familiar with local issues in the driver’s seat to determine whether, when, and for how long to provide opportunities for public participation for proposed new minor sources and modifications,” an EPA spokesperson tells WIRED, noting the rule wouldn’t alter emissions standards.

These state-by-state differences can make a big difference in how the public gets involved. Keri Powell, an Atlanta-based attorney at the environmental legal advocacy group Southern Environmental Law Center, says that groups like hers often end up taking on cases in states like Georgia, which, she says, has a more robust public notification and participation process for minor sources. Earlier this month, the group alerted the state utility about construction issues at a data center, based on information they’d gotten from the companies’ public air permit applications. But if the EPA removes the federal requirement, community and legal groups in the state could get little to no heads up about upcoming projects and be shut out of participation and review.

“Georgia is an example of a place where I can say I’m concerned,” Powell says.

Sara Lips, the director of communications at Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, says that the agency is “determining whether proposed federal rule changes would affect the public participation requirements per the state regulations.”

The EPA is working to make the US “the AI capital of the world.”

Kentucky also has stronger public participation laws for minor source permits. Byron Gary, a senior attorney at the Kentucky Resources Council, says state agencies have made an “informal commitment” behind the scenes to keep their public participation rules the same, even if the EPA changes its rules. But, he says, that could shift: “Who knows [if] the next administration, whether they would actually change it.”

Texas is an example of what lower levels of engagement look like. The data center boom there has driven a massive buildout of private gas plants, many of which rely on minor pollution permits. The state’s lower levels of enforcement have left some communities living in the shadows of data centers surprised at the scope of fossil fuel infrastructure being installed near their homes.

Since coming into power, the Trump administration has gone all in on artificial intelligence, removing multiple roadblocks for data center development at the federal level. That includes efforts at the EPA, which is working to make the US “the AI capital of the world,” the agency spokesperson says.

Companies are also spending vast sums of money on the data center buildout: Spending on data center construction outpaced spending on public transportation infrastructure for the first time in June. Given that public opposition is creating a new bottleneck for data center development, the timing of the rule revision, Powell says, is probably not an accident.

“I think it’s part of a package of rules that the Trump administration is pushing through to make it easier for AI data centers to be constructed,” she says.

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OpenAI Hacking Fiasco Exposes a “Deeply Insufficient” System to Protect the Public

The incident sounded straight out of a science fiction movie: OpenAI’s super-advanced tool hacked another AI company’s systems in an attempt to pass its owndevelopers’ cybersecurity test. Just replace the AI tech with a newly engineered virus and you have an entire existing subgenre.

“We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities,” OpenAI wrote in a Tuesday blog post explaining the incident. The tech giant said their tool, designed to execute tasks without anyhuman assistance, independentlybreached Hugging Face, another startup that hosts a voluminous number of publicly available AI models, while it was testing internally how good it was at “advanced exploitation using complex attack paths” within a supposedly enclosed lab environment called a sandbox. In other words, OpenAI was testing its own hacking capabilities, and the brakes came off; the tool broke out and onto the open internet, and that’s when the mischief began.

OpenAI said they had the situation under control: Hugging Face detected the breach last week and stopped the activity on their own (and called the cops). Since then, OpenAI said it was working with Hugging Face on addressing vulnerabilities.

But the incident—along with many others my colleagueshave reported about—brings up countless regulatory concerns as the industry, and the public at large, grapples with what actually went down at OpenAI and the safety of autonomous agents. (The Center for Investigative Reporting, the parent company of Mother Jones, has sued OpenAI for copyright violations. OpenAI has denied the allegations.)

To better understand what actually happened—and to what extent we should be worried—I spoke with Miranda Bogen, who works on developing and promoting AI governance that incorporates technical expertise as the chief technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology and the founding director of its AI Governance Lab.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What was your immediate reaction to hearing the news come out on Tuesday?

The rhetoric was very overblown. The headlines made it out that a model had run amok, and that it was a complete surprise, and that it was something people might be exposed to. But what was really happening was that OpenAI was testing a new version of a system made up of multiple of its models. It was specifically within a sandboxed environment, and they were basically trying to get it to demonstrate capabilities in executing cyber attacks. What ended up happening was that the system identified a vulnerability in a part of the sandbox setup, and it used that vulnerability to access the internet to find the answer key for the test, which led it to try to figure out if the answers to the test were on Hugging Face in a non-public setup.

That still demonstrates a quite advanced set of tasks that these systems are able to do now. But all of the safeguards had been removed for the purposes of this test, and it was doing the type of thing it was being tested to do—it just ended up finding a different channel to do that.

You mentioned some of the rhetoric being overblown. Are you referring to media coverage, what OpenAI and Hugging Face have said, or something else?

The real active debate is: “Is the government the right actor to decide that, especially when there are potential national security implications?”

I think the headline [of] “models escaped containment and hacked into a startup” is not necessarily wrong, but it makes it sound much more “run amok” than a particular contained experiment that was noted and caught. While I do think that the incident is something that’s important to look at and figure out what would be needed to prevent this from happening in the future, we can’t lose sight of the fact that there are very active conversations in AI policy going on about under what conditions models are permitted to be released and who needs to see them before they’re released.

The attention that companies get when they talk about very advanced capabilities gives them airtime with decision-makers. I can’t speak to the motivation that [OpenAI] had in how it characterized the incident, but that’s certainly something going on in the background.

OpenAI has product rollouts where there’s a version for regular users and a more advanced one for a set of trusted people. Could this specific OpenAI incident have escalated to a point where it was something actually concerning?

I think this incident was just a breach of a private part of the Hugging Face platform and didn’t lead to material harm beyond the fact that it was able to be breached. An incident like this could have had a material impact had the model been attempting to take actions that included taking down a website, exfiltrating information, or sending a huge volume of traffic to another party or platform. The fact that the model was operating in an external environment does suggest that it could have been possible that those actions could have had some consequences. In this case, they didn’t, but this was a test that was intended to be purely internal, as far as I can tell, among employees.

Even when there’s a trusted set of actors who are given access to advanced models, there are still some safeguards and monitoring, as far as I understand. In this case, I believe they were trying to understand the underlying capabilities of the model without those safeguards, because that informs how strong the safeguards need to be. I don’t think they are typically giving the rawest version of those models, even to the trusted parties, but I don’t have the details of exactly how those trusted party agreements are playing out.

We’re mostly basing our assessment on what Hugging Face and OpenAI have said publicly. Are there more details we should know about this incident?

The fact that this incident was disclosed is a good thing. There are no requirements that these incidents are disclosed yet. There are some laws coming online at the state level where incidents are reported to a relevant office, but it’s still pretty nascent, such that these reports are somewhat voluntary. I do think sharing the incident is important to build on this practice of companies sharing details.

The challenging thing with incidents like this is that these details have real security salience for the ecosystem and figuring out how much information you share, and with whom, so that someone else can’t figure out how to exploit the same vulnerability. I don’t know precisely where that line ought to be, but those are active debates right now. The real active debate is: “Is the government the right actor to decide that, especially when there are potential national security implications?”

You mentioned the federal government’s decisions around regulation as arbitrary. Could you elaborate more on why you think that?

When Anthropic released Fable, which was a version of the Mythos model that had additional safeguards, there were a few days where there was uncertainty around who was allowed to use it because the company didn’t have a way to verify who were foreign users, and there was no established test to say this is the amount of cyber capability that a model can have before it triggers some kind of intervention under the auspices of a national security justification. So when I say the actions are arbitrary, that’s what I mean.

I know some folks who are also concerned about models that are only deployed internally at these labs because it’s clear that even in the most contained of environments—[the OpenAI] model figured out a way to take steps beyond the borders of what they thought was a secure environment. Are there [internal uses] that should cause concern? And who are the right actors to determine if even those internal uses are safe? These are all questions that are being sorted out at the moment, and the conversations are still pretty early.

We’re talking about companies already making models, releasing them to the public, and testing very advanced internal models as we have these regulatory conversations. Where do you think the progress of implementing real regulations is today?

What laws have been able to move in a few states are laws that ask companies to come up with their own safety plan and to follow that safety plan.

The question is whether critical infrastructure providers —industry, banks, schools, hospitals— can sufficiently protect against those types of attacks, because that would be another place that harm could happen to people.

That seems deeply insufficient for the types of risks and harms there are. At the same time, those [laws] are really focused on these so-called frontier risks [from research labs training models from major companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google]. This incident is very much about what the most advanced thing these models could potentially do is, and what risks that will pose. I’m not saying that isn’t worth attention, but there are already models out there that are being used in all sorts of places that are not undergoing this same level of rigour in testing.

I don’t see a lot of policy interventions that are poised to move the needle on creating the incentives for that breadth of testing to happen. There was just a new bill floated out by some of the key folks in Congress [Thursday], that would attempt to tackle the type of issue that just happened with OpenAI and Hugging Face, but it’s a much bigger world out there with the types of harms these systems can have, and I think we’re quite behind the ball on tackling all those risks.

Given how insufficient this regulation policy framework is right now, what do you think should be done for laws to be passed that are more informed and effective?

The requirements that folks want to put on frontier developers are robust, which is important, but I think companies don’t want to be subject to many of these robust protections because they take a lot of work [and] they slow things down. They worry that competitors and foreign developers will get ahead of them.

The fear that lawmakers have of slowing down and losing a race to a geopolitical adversary is also really getting in the way. I think without really robust interventions that actually change the incentives that companies face in what they’re testing, when they’re testing it, how robustly they’re testing it, and what they’re doing to fix problems, I don’t think we’re gonna address the risks that are coming online.

If you’re a regular internet user, how worried should you be?

Ordinary users have a lot more to fear from basic data processing practices of both AI companies and every other company using AI to do their work than they do these types of incidents that are demonstrating very advanced capabilities because AI is being broadly used across the economy. It’s processing a lot of people’s data, and very few deployers of AI know how to test that AI well.

That said, the development of these very advanced models is changing the cybersecurity landscape quite significantly. To the extent there are actors who are trying to actively breach companies and get their data or other types of harmful actions, that risk does seem to be growing. The question is whether critical infrastructure providers —industry, banks, schools, hospitals— can sufficiently protect against those types of attacks, because that would be another place that harm could happen to people.

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Trump Ended TPS Overnight. Deporting 350,000 Haitians Is a Different Story.

Since the US Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to end the Temporary Protected Status designation for Haitians, immigrant rights groups, local government officials, and lawmakers—Republicans and Democrats alike—have been rallying for an extension of the program.

They’ve yet to succeed. A bill to preserve the program until 2029 was rejected Wednesday in the Senate. Another measure, the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide a pathway to legal status for TPS holders and many otherimmigrants, is likely to face the same fate. Scheduled to expire on July 24, as a result of an appeals court order,TPS protections for Haitians are now in place until at least July 27, the Miami Herald reported.

The end of TPS would mean that about 350,000 Haitians—roughly the population of New Orleans or Orlando—would be added to the ever-growing pool of immigrants at risk of deportation. I spoke to immigration policy experts this week to understand how quickly the US government could target this community once they are stripped of their legal status. They all told me the process would be slow and would face many logistical hurdles. The likely scenario is that for the Haitian community, some may be deported, others may find another pathway to legal status, and many will remain undocumented within the US.

“It’s not like the minute TPS ends, the government can simply go out, arrest people and have them on a plane 24 hours later.”

“It’s not like the minute TPS ends, the government can simply go out, arrest people and have them on a plane 24 hours later,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “The vast majority of people with TPS are not currently in any sort of removal process…The US government has to find them, arrest them, take them into custody, process them, then determine whether they are subject to detention or not.”

Complicating matters for the Trump administration is their deportation operations capacity. In thelast fiscal year ending July 11, ICE carried out about 350,000 removals. “That would mean the entire system would have to stop everything else it was doing and focus entirely on the Haitian population if they wanted to deport them in a year,” Reichlin-Melnick added. “I don’t think they’re going to do that. They have other priorities. They have other people they’re going to be after.”

Another challenge is the limited air travel available to Haiti, which has been ravaged in recent years by gang violence. Flights have all but stopped to the airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince after some US planes were struck by gunfire. Since December 2023, there has been a monthly deportation flight to Haiti that lands at the Cap-Haïtien airport on the northern coast, according to Human Rights First, which tracks ICE flights. In recent days, Haitian officials have been told by the Trump administration that they should expect two weekly flights carrying a total of 250 people, the Herald reported. “The conditions to be able to deport people to Haiti are so complicated and logistically difficult within themselves that it’s very unlikely that they’ll be able to do this quickly,” said Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

Even though Haitians would be joining the millions of other immigrants who are on ICE’s radar, the fact that TPS holders have been sharing their contact information with the US government for years would make them easier targets, John Sandweg, a former ICE director under President Obama, told me this week. TPS holders are required to report to the government for background screenings every few years. “The lowest public safety threats are the most vulnerable,” Sandweg said. “I guarantee it is easier for ICE to target those people than somebody who just crossed the border two years ago, but didn’t get apprehended.”

Meanwhile, Haitians here under TPS brace for whatever is to come. As I reported earlier this week, many Haitians are consulting with attorneys to assess their legal options. Others plan to continue to report to their jobs until their work permits expire. “TPS holders don’t know what’s next for them,” Sui Chung, the executive director of the Miami-based legal nonprofit Americans for Immigrant Justice, told me. “It is such a sense of terror and disbelief that they could be returned to a country that is so completely in chaos and so very dangerous.”

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Trump Calls Climate Change a Hoax. Americans Aren’t Buying It.

_This story was originally published b_y the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Amid a summer of dangerous heat, drought, and floods, a majority of Americans are connecting increasingly severe weather to the climate crisis, new polling shows, despite efforts by Donald Trump to dismiss global heating as a “con job” and a “hoax.”

It’s a sign that attempts to suppress and polarize climate concerns may not be seeing full success, said Grace Adcox, senior climate strategist at Data for Progress.

“We started with the question of ‘are extreme weather events increasing,’ because we thought [that] if we can find consensus on that, that can be an entry point to being able to have a more bipartisan conversation about climate and climate intervention,” she said.

About 61 percent of likely American voters believe extreme weather events have become more frequent over the past five years, the survey from the progressive polling firm Data for Progress, shared exclusively with the Guardian, found. That includes 72 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents, and nearly half—46 percent—of all Republicans.

Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island senator who has long criticized Democrats for quieting their talk of global warming—or “climate-hushing”—said the new data “adds to the mountain of evidence that the public is way ahead of the politicians on the dire consequences of climate change.”

“Extreme heat happens to have the biggest footprint in the American context compared to some of these other types of extreme weather.”

“Climate hushers who ignore this righteous fight should take note,” he told the Guardian.

The researchers also asked participants about whether or not specific forms of extreme weather are being “worsened by climate change.” Majorities linked climate change to worsening wildfires (64 percent), droughts (63 percent), flooding and flash flooding (62 percent), hurricanes (59 percent), and severe thunderstorms and hailstorms (59 percent). But heatwaves topped the list, with 67 percent saying climate change is making them worse—including 48 percent of Republicans, the highest share for any of the extreme weather events surveyed.

That could be because nearly everyone in the US has experienced unusually hot days or weeks in recent years, said Adcox. High temperatures kill more people annually in the US than hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combined.

“There are regional differences across experiences with extreme weather,” said Adcox. “Extreme heat happens to have the biggest footprint in the American context compared to some of these other types of extreme weather.”

The finding indicates that scorching conditions could provide an “interesting opening salvo” to speak about the climate crisis, she added.

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said the new poll’s findings are “very consistent” with the conclusions researchers have drawn based on Yale’s surveys, which have shown Americans are increasingly linking extreme weather to the climate crisis and want to protect workers from heat.

But Jennifer Marlon, a senior research scientist at Yale who also focuses on climate communications, said despite this, it’s not clear if most Americans understand why exactly the climate is changing.

“This is probably the biggest misconception out there—many Americans still think the warming is due to some kind of natural cycle. But it isn’t,” she said, adding that a spring survey from Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found 27 percent of people think that the changes are mostly natural.

The survey findings could help inform how to frame future conversations about the climate crisis with skeptical Americans, said Adcox. For instance, the data indicates heat may be the form of extreme weather that invites most conversation about climate.

“You can say, hey, this extreme heat event is crazy, so let’s talk about it, let’s talk about why it’s happening,” she said.

“These findings send a powerful message: protecting workers from dangerous heat isn’t a partisan issue.”

Another survey finding also indicates that even Americans who may not be convinced that the climate crisis is human-caused—or even that it is happening—would support some climate justice-focused measures.

Amid global and national rising temperatures, workers who labor outdoors—such as construction workers, farm workers, and roofers—are among the populations most vulnerable to heat-related illness.

In fact, extreme heat is a leading contributor to workplace injuries and deaths. Some indoor workers, including those in warehouses, commercial kitchens, and manufacturing facilities, can also face severe heat risk due to a lack of air conditioning, poor ventilation, humidity, and other factors. It’s a risk that the polling indicates most Americans think lawmakers should address.

About 88 percent of participants in the Data for Progress survey said they favor policies in their own state requiring employers to provide heat protections like access to drinking water, shade, breaks, and air conditioning. Only 7 percent of likely voters said they oppose the policy, indicating broad support for the protections that previous Data for Progress polls have also shown.

“These findings send a powerful message: protecting workers from dangerous heat isn’t a partisan issue,” said Jessica E Martinez, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a network of two dozen local grassroots worker organizations. “When 88 percent of likely voters … support requiring employers to provide basic, lifesaving heat protections, it’s clear the public expects every worker to be protected.”

She said the polling indicates the public would support the creation of a federal heat standard—something workers have demanded for years, but on which progress has stalled under Trump.

The current administration this April also allowed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s nationwide enforcement initiative focused on protecting workers from heat illness, then later issued a revised but vastly weakened program.

“Our hope in continuing to profile the broad and particularly strong support that we see across partisanship for extreme heat protections for workers is a way for us to illustrate what it could look like to take an approach to climate that puts working people first,” said Adcox.

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How to Keep an Alleged War Criminal Out of New York

Earlier this month, Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—possibly the most prominent figure on Israel’s extreme right—cancelled a visit to New York amid legal pressure, in a rare moment of accountability for a regime that generally operates with near impunity where the United States is concerned.

Ben-Gvir, who is best known for attempting to build a crocodile moat around one of his prisons, advocating to bring back hanging, starving prisoners, and pushing for Israel to settle Gaza, was scheduled to attend an international police summit at the UN. But after the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group, and the Hind Rajab Foundation, a Belgium-based group that files war crimes claims against individual Israeli soldiers, asked New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Ben-Gvir for war crimes, he bowed out.

“I think it’s a big win,” said Jake Romm, the organization’s US spokesperson. “Anything that signals that impunity is going away is a victory, even if it’s not an arrest. He’s being made afraid of accountability. It’s a sign the impunity is starting to crumble.”

The lawyers asked New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Ben-Gvir. His policies, they contend, have harmed residents of New York, where multiple participants in the Global Sumud Flotillas to Gaza—attempts to deliver aid through Israel’s blockade that have repeatedly been attacked by the Israeli military—reside and are prepared to testify that they were harmed by Ben-Gvir. Najeh Abduljalil, a New York resident who served as an EMT on a boat full of military veterans sailing to Gaza with aid last year, witnessed Ben-Gvir’s threats towards his group—then watched as the Israeli military allegedly firebombed a boat 70 meters away from him. “The whole idea was to psychologically terrify us,” Abduljalil said.

Michael Fix, another flotilla participant, alleged “physical and mental abuse” in Israeli prisons under Ben-Gvir’s administration. And a Palestinian-American New York resident who spent time in Israeli jails said in an interview that Ben-Gvir was to blame for “severe changes in conditions” when he took over Israel’s prison ministry: an increase in physical beatings, alongside the elimination of family visitation for some Palestinian prisoners, and reduction of the prisoners’ food allowance.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and Hind Rajab Foundation both argue that Attorney General James would have jurisdiction to investigate Ben-Gvir, though James hasn’t spoken publicly on the matter. Her office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

But in September, an even more significant architect of genocide in Gaza is scheduled to come to New York: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has presided over the killing of at least 73,000 Palestinians.

During Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, he promised to arrest Netanyahu. But in a video posted Tuesday, Mamdani acknowledged that he lacks the independent legal authority to put Netanyahu in handcuffs, calling on the federal government to do so.

Donald Trump, in apparent response, posted on social media that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while ​in the United States of America.”

That doesn’t mean Netanyahu is immune to the tactics fielded against Ben-Gvir—or that he and his collaborators can’t be made unwelcome in New York. The mayor could follow the example of Rudy Giuliani, who in 1995 had Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, ejected from a Lincoln Center UN concert. He could direct the New York Police Department not to assist with Netanyahu’s motorcade. Or he could join the calls for James to open an independent investigation into how Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu, or other Israeli officials may have harmed New Yorkers.

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Trump Puts Words in the Mouths of Dead Soldiers

President Donald Trump’s open disdain for Americans who have died in war, “losers” and “suckers,” in his estimation, is well documented. But that hasn’t stopped him from exploiting fallen soldiers to prop up support for himself. This time, it’s the four service members who were killed over the last week as the US returns to full-scale war with Iran.

“All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,'” Trump told reporters as he departed to attend a dignified transfer, the process by which the remains of fallen military members are moved from aircraft to vehicle, in Dover, Delaware, on Wednesday.

There is no evidence that the service members killed, as Trump so confidently claimed, ever said or believed this. It conveniently happens to be one of the exceedingly few talking points Trump has had for continuing an increasingly unpopular war on all his own. And what better device for repeating his excuse than dead Americans who can’t speak for themselves?

The assertion was made, without evidence or apparent shame, shortly after the president appeared to boast on social media about the total number of service members killed since the US first launched strikes against Iran in February. In doing so, Trump referred to the casualties of previous wars, seemingly arguing that 18 wasn’t so bad.

“Afghanistan War: 20 years, 2,000 DEAD.
Iraq War: 9 years, 4,600 DEAD.
Vietnam War: 19 years and 5 months, 58,220 DEAD.
Korean War: 3 years and 1 month, 36,574 DEAD.
Venezuela War: 1 day, 0 DEAD.
Iran Military Conflict: 4 months, 18 DEAD.”

The comments are the latest evidence of Trump’s long-held, blatant disregard for those killed in war. Meanwhile, his administration’s celebration of war, both in absurd pageantry and ethos, continues apace.

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Former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Departs With His Own Paul Walker ‘Furious 7’ Tribute

I don’t know many specifics about former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer—but I do know his goodbye video is baffling.

On Monday, Starmer posted a TikTok video of himself in the final scene of Furious 7, complete with the ending song, “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and featuring Charlie Puth. The former prime minister’s face was edited onto Vin Diesel’s Fast and Furious character, Dominic Toretto, and a photo of the front door of 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence and office, to Paul Walker’s character, Brian O’Conner, as the pair part ways. The actual movie scene served as a tribute to Walker, who died in a single-vehicle car collision while Furious 7 was still filming.

@keirstarmer

It’s been a privilege to serve

♬ original sound – Keir Starmer

“Hey, thought you could leave without saying goodbye?” O’Conner—or in this case, the 10 Downing Street front door asks.

And Toretto, a.k.a. Keir Starmer, smiles at O’Conner and thinks to himself: “I used to say I live my life a quarter-mile at a time, and I think that’s why we were brothers, because you did, too.”

The movie continues to a montage of O’Conner in the previous Fast and Furious movies, so of course the typically buttoned-up Starmer replaces it with a montage of what—I guess—he thinks he looks like doing his job well: delivering speeches; walking with his wife Victoria Starmer while a bunch of people applaud him; speaking with members of the military; and doing the “6-7” meme hand gesture with another student in a classroom (something some schools have banned because its ubiquity has become annoying and—I just learned this one—something Starmer jokingly apologized to a teacher over for doing on another occasion).

It’s ridiculous, but it is much better than what the US has at the moment.

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Staten Island v. New York City With Revisionist History

This week, we’re bringing you a special episode from Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. Gladwell’s show recently investigated what was once the biggest secession movement in the US since the Civil War: the movement by disillusioned residents in Staten Island to secede from New York City.

“The Staten Island Problem,” Revisionist History’s newest five-part series, reconstructs the battle for New York during the turbulent early 1990s—the rise of Rudy Giuliani, the peak of the homicide rate, the Wu-Tang Clan, young Donald Trump, and the first Black mayor of New York—all through the prism of the city’s oft-forgotten borough. Why tell this story now? Because the island’s secession movement is an early example of the politics of resentment that dominates America today.

The first episode of “The Staten Island Problem” tells the story of David Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York, facing off with the borough president of Staten Island all while trying to hold his city together.

Revisionist History and “The Staten Island Problem”are produced by Pushkin Industries. Check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app, and don’t forget to subscribe.

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What ICE Should Have Known When It Hired David Brouillette

Ashley Brouillette had not heard from her ex-husband, David Brouillette, since November. She says one of their last interactions was a three-minute voicemail in which David told her that someone should slit her and her daughters’ throats.

Then, last week, Ashley got a call from a journalist, who asked if she recognized her ex-husband among the ICE agents photographed after the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. She did. The news caught her off guard, so she reached out to David: He told her he’d shot Durán and that he’d acted in self-defense because, he claimed, Durán tried to hit him with a car. Ashley doesn’t believe him. After watching the limited surveillance footage of the incident, she believes her ex-husband “murdered” Durán, a 25-year-old Colombian man whose daughter recently celebrated her third birthday.

Durán was not the target of ICE’s operation in Biddeford. After coming to the United States in 2023, he got jobs cleaning a veterinary office and delivering food. In a press conference, Durán’s partner, Martha Karolina Rojas Álvarez, described him as someone whose joy was contagious. “He always said I was his life, and that he dreamed of a whole lifetime with me,” Rojas said through a translator. “He always told me, Until we’re little old people.”

After the killing, Ashley says, David told her that she needed to talk about his character in a positive way. “I’m not going to lie for you,” she replied. She says he also asked her not to talk about abuse that had happened in their marriage, which ended in 2009. When reached by Mother Jones, Ashley accused David of years of violence and abuse, allegations that were corroborated by her mother and echoed comments Ashley had made to a child welfare official years ago, according to court records. The Augusta, Maine, police department did not find documentation of the alleged abuse, but she and her mother recalled harrowing details. One time, Ashley alleges, David threw hot water at her while she held their daughter. Another time, he allegedly pointed a gun at her and said he should shoot her in their bathtub. Now, with David on the phone, Ashley repeated that she wouldn’t lie for him.

Another ex-wife, Lucinda Brouillette, said in a statement to reporters that she “unequivocally” believes David is capable of extreme acts of violence. In hundreds of pages of court records, she has accused him of physical and verbal abuse, including allegedly dumping a plate of spaghetti on his 13-year-old daughter’s head and then tackling her while she cried. “I have feared for a long time that his anger, aggression, and escalating behavior would eventually result in severe, life-threatening violence, and I often believed I would be the one on the receiving end of it,” Lucinda wrote.

While surveillance footage captures the moments before and after the shooting, no videos have emerged to show the moment when David allegedly killed Durán. What has become clear in the days afterward, however, is that there are many reasons why ICE should have avoided hiring him in the first place. “The seriousness of the allegations—domestic violence—you’d think would likely be disqualifying for someone who’s going to be armed by the government,” says Claire Trickler-McNulty, an ICE official in the Biden and first Trump administrations. Making matters worse, ICE records suggest that David may have been eligible to skip a significant portion of the agency’s training for new recruits, given his prior work history. ICE asked for additional time to respond after missing an initial deadline for this article last week, and we were not able to reach David. The agency has not yet confirmed that he was the shooter.

Ashley believes her ex-husband should have never had access to a weapon in a personal capacity, much less in an official one: “He does not belong in careers that involve guns.”

David Brouillette joined ICE earlier this year. He’d long wanted to be a police officer, even in high school, according to one of his childhood best friends, Scott Collins. “I always thought it was a superiority thing,” Collins told us. “He always wanted to be in a position of power.”

After Gardiner Area High, David joined the Maine National Guard in 2007 and then the Army in 2010,deploying to Afghanistan for about nine months. “Afghanistan destroyed him,” an estranged relative told the Associated Press. Afterward, he worked as a corrections officer, then as a police officer with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was also briefly a volunteer firefighter, though Frank Wozniak, his former boss at the Town of Manchester Fire Department, told Mother Jones he fired David for threatening to “punch me in the face and take my job.” (Wozniak told David to get out of the firehouse and never come back; the town’s next fire chief rehired him.)

David struggled financially. In 2020, he pleaded for a Maine court to reduce child support payments required by his second divorce. “I am NOT ABLE to survive,” David wrote in a handwritten statement. He added, “PLEASE PLEASE reduce my [child support].”

“PLEASE PLEASE reduce my CS to the amount set by state guidelines or less,” David Brouillette wrote in court documents.

In January 2025, he quit a truck-driving job due to unspecified health issues, but a judge argued he was actually “voluntarily underemployed” and declined to reduce his child support payments that November. About two weeks later, he told Ashley he was going to work for ICE, which was offering signing bonuses of up to $50,000. After years of bouncing between jobs with little apparent success, ICE’s recruitment drive offered a lifeline.

Ashley didn’t believe the agency was actually hiring him; he’d previously claimed he was joining the Secret Service, which never happened. “Yeah, sure, buddy,” she recalls thinking. Collins, his childhood friend, only found out that David had joined ICE after the July 13 shooting. “I think it speaks volumes of the vetting process, and how little these ICE agents are trained,” Collins says. “To be honest, I was surprised anybody would give that man a gun.”

For months, Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that ICE, while hiring more than 12,000 new officers and agents, has rushed them onto the street without adequate preparation. Calls for more training and for the dissolution of the agency have grown as ICE has launched high-profile and violent campaigns in cities from Minneapolis to Chicago, brutalizing protesters around the country and fatally shooting at least five people in their vehicles.

An ICE spokesperson emphasized to the AP that David had “nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience,” and that he had “required training, including use of force training.” But what vetting did he undergo before hitting the streets? According to a current job posting for deportation officers, David may have been eligible to skip a significant portion of ICE’s training for new recruits because of his tenure with the VA Police; the posting notes that anyone with “Local, State or other Federal Law Enforcement training with arrest authority will be exempted” from ICE’s basic training program in Georgia—a multiple-week program where recruits learn the ins and outs of their new job, including de-escalation techniques designed to prevent the use of force.

Marc Brown, who retired from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers in 2024 and is now a policing expert at the University of South Carolina, told us that under the Biden administration, it was not common for recruits of any federal law enforcement agency to skip large parts of training, even if they had prior experience. “You don’t usually get a full pass, especially if you go into a totally different program,” he said, noting that working for the VA Department or many other federal departments is different from working for ICE. “Those are two totally separate systems; they need training on that new mission,” he said.

VA police aren’t like municipal police who patrol streets and conduct traffic stops. Instead, Brown said, they primarily function as security guards for VA hospitals. (The VA Department did not respond to questions about whether its officers receive training on use of force against people in vehicles; ICE did not respond to questions about David’s training.)

“It’s very clear at this point that officers are being rushed out to make these arrests, and there’s an operational failure taking place.”

The ICE job posting says that while recruits with former law enforcement experience can skip basic training, they do need to complete the “Deportation Officer Transition Program,” a newer program that Brown was unfamiliar with. In total, training for deportation officers takes about 50 days, according to the posting—though in a Reddit forum 10 months ago, recruits with law enforcement experience shared that they were allowed to do a virtual training from home. One officer with prior experience at the Department of Homeland Security said it only took him three days.

Trickler-McNulty, the former ICE official, confirmed that allowing former law enforcement officers to skip ICE’s basic training is a new change under Trump 2.0. She worries that instructors are losing an opportunity “to lay eyes” on these recruits, and to see “how they’re interacting and responding to training before they’re out in the field.”

Ryan Schwank, an ICE instructor and attorney who resigned in February, says that even recruits who do attend ICE’s full training program are not prepared for the jobs they’re asked to do. The agency’s instruction on vehicle stops is “fairly short and kind of rote,” he told WBUR last week, noting that officers are tested on their ability to pull over a vehicle under ideal conditions. “We don’t test them on their ability to handle complex crises or how to handle the types of situations we’re seeing happen,” he added, like the situation in Maine. “The officers are being put in a situation where they’re dealing with the public and these vehicles, and their training doesn’t line up with the role they’re expected to fulfill,” Schwank said. “It’s very clear at this point that officers are being rushed out to make these arrests, and there’s an operational failure taking place.”

Starting this month, ICE is reportedly increasing its core training program from 42 days to about 71, with more instruction about high-risk vehicle stops. But the agency is still not always conducting full background checks before sending recruits out, which means it may not have known about David’s history when it hired him. The AP recently found other officers who were hired despite questionable records; one was accused of lying in a police report to justify a charge against an innocent woman. Another failed to graduate from a police academy.

A DHS spokesperson told the AP, “ICE is committed to ensuring its law enforcement personnel are held to the highest standards and rigorously vets them throughout the hiring process.” But the spokesperson acknowledged that some applicants receive “tentative selection letters” and are allowed to begin working “on a temporary status” before the full background check is complete.

ICE has still not explained how thoroughly it investigated David’s background before giving him a gun. What is clear from court records and interviews is that the agency hired him despite accusations of abuse by two ex-wives and years of professional struggles.

In Maine, Durán’s family is living with the results. At the press conference, Durán’s partner, Rojas, described Durán’s devotion to their 3-year-old: “He lived for her; everything he did, he did in the name of his gorda.” Through tears, Rojas said her daughter asks for her dad every night, but that she has not had the strength to tell her that he is not coming home.

The family’s lawyer has called ICE’s decision to arm Brouillette so “reckless” that it could justify criminal charges against the people who hired him.

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It’s Fine to Criticize Graham Platner’s Replacement

On Monday night, Senate candidateTroy Jackson, Maine Democrats’ likely replacement for Graham Platner, was the subject of reports from colleagues accusing him of bullying.

According to the Washington Postand CNN, Jackson, a leading Maine Democrat who served most recently as the state Senate president, has a history of shouting and cursing at co-workers, and allegedly threw a water bottle toward another lawmaker, Heather Sanborn, when he couldn’t convince her to vote his way—an incident that became infamous within the state Senate.

Many of his Democratic colleagues described Jackson’s conduct to the Post and CNN as a recurring feature of his time in Maine’s senate, and eventually a pressing problem that they raised with Gov. Janet Mills, who was defeated in her own primary candidacy for the Senate seat at stake—and some said that much of the behavior was directed at women.

Sanborn, whom Jackson allegedly alsoscreamed at “an inch from her nose,” did not return to the Senate for several days after the incident. While Jackson later apologized, his statements did not impresssome colleagues, according to CNN.

Several said that despite a Democratic majority in both legislature chambers and a Democratic governor in Janet Mills, they couldn’t achieve as much as they could have because leaders didn’t get along.

“It was so difficult to maneuver because none of them would even speak to each other,” one top Maine Democratic official told the Post. “It was inept.”

The campaign, and some other Maine lawmakers, tell a different story. “Over 22 years in public office, there have been moments when he let his frustration get the better of him,” Jackson’s campaign told CNN in a Monday statement. “Troy regrets the moments when disagreements became too heated, but passion for the issues he advocates for should not be confused with physical intimidation or bullying.”

Many prominent voices who initially backed Platner have dismissed or ridiculed the reports:

it’s interesting that Troy Jackson is being described as the LBJ of the Maine legislature pic.twitter.com/KIZktGX64n

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) July 21, 2026

OK that’s nice. Susan Collins voted against blocking the war in Iran helping murder almost 200 schoolgirls and leading to the injuries of hundred of Americans. https://t.co/030SEGyQmM

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) July 20, 2026

The smear campaigns are getting dumber and dumber. Shouldn’t have ditched Platner on an unproven allegation. https://t.co/cjQqZszdNB

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 20, 2026

But do the particular incidents Democratic lawmakers cited sound like the “passion” neededin a political “moment [that] calls for a rabble-rouser”? Not really. Is it bad to demand more from elected representatives? Or bad not to want to normalize the kind of workplace behavior that’s alleged of Jackson? No. As to whether it’s an excuse to go after white men: Remember the extensive coverage of Kamala Harris’ allegedly unhealthy workplace culture? Or Amy Klobuchar’s?

To be clear, CNN noted that the dozens of Democrats it interviewed said they did not find Jackson’s behavior comparable to that of former nominee Graham Platner, who is alleged to have raped Jenny Racicot, a woman he previously dated, and exhibited troubling behavior toward at least six other women. And some told CNN that they spoke out because they wanted Jackson to publicly acknowledge his conduct and make an effort to seriously address it ahead of the general election.

People speaking out about Jackson’s alleged history of bullying are not, in effect, siding with or disregarding Maine Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins and her disturbing record.

Democrats picked Jackson as their leader in part because of his chances to win in more conservative areas of the state, and were willing to overlook his opposition to abortion and years as a Republican.

That’s already a lot to look past. It’s reasonable to demand better.

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The Trump Administration Is Trying to Revive a “Zombie” Deportation Court

Last week, the Trump administration filed the first-of-its-kind application with a 30-year-old removal court seeking to deport an immigrant as a suspected “alien terrorist.” The twist is that the court has been dormant for that entire time.

Congress created the special Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) in 1996 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. “From now on we can quickly expel foreigners who dare to come to America and support terrorist activities,” President Bill Clinton said when signing the bill into law.

The statute authorized the Chief Justice of the United States to assign five district court judges to review removal applications brought by the attorney general against alleged non-citizen “terrorists” in complex cases involving sensitive national security information.

In its 30 years of existence, that removal court has never received a removal application or conducted any proceedings, even if its five-member body has been fully staffed. Currently, all five judges are also part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, another special court that reviews government applications for foreign intelligence surveillance warrants.

On July 15, the Justice Department filed a single-page application with the special court. Details about the case are sealed. But a judge’s order on the matter states that, following a hearing, the court “had questions about the nexus that the government alleges between the actions of the respondent and the specific sections and subsections it invokes with respect to those actions.”

The order, signed by the court’s presiding judge Joan N. Ericksen, says that the “Government could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration.” The judge asked the administration to “provide any further factual or legal analysis to satisfy its statutory obligations” by Wednesday, July 22.

A judge may grant the attorney general’s application if they find probable cause that the government correctly identified the alleged “alien terrorist” and if their removal under regular proceedings would pose a risk to the national security of the United States. The person accused has the right to a public removal hearing, and the government has to provide an unclassified summary of the evidence. The judge’s decision can be appealed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The fact that the Justice Department has initiated an ATRC proceeding is quite serious.”

“The fact that the Justice Department has initiated an ATRC proceeding is quite serious,” said Aram Gavoor, the associate dean for academic affairs at George Washington University’s law school who wrote a 2019 paper about the removal court’s inactivity. “It is 20 to 30 times harder to succeed in a court like this, especially the first time, than to bring perhaps the exact same case in administrative removal proceedings before an immigration judge.”

In that article, Gavoor and his co-author explained that the ATRC isn’t supposed to be a “high-volume court used for run-of-the-mill removal cases. Instead, it should be used only when the attorney general “determines that resorting to conventional removal proceedings would jeopardize national security.” With the passage of subsequent legislation that further limited the scope of potential cases to reach the ATRC,it has been relegated to a “veritable zombie court.”

Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown University, described the ATRC as “an academic curiosity” on his Substack. “I have at least some concerns about why the Trump administration is dusting it off now,” Vladeck wrote. He noted that the ATRC has guardrails that make it different from the regular removal process—including that it’s administered not by the Justice Department’s immigration judges butby Article III judges from different judicial courts**.**

Its mandate also presents some due process concerns because it allows the government to rely on classified evidence that might not be made available to the person it’s trying to deport. During legislative debates leading up to the Act’s passage, then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) pointed out the risks of deporting people based on secret evidence, calling it “about as un-American as it gets.”

Vladeck appeared skeptical that the Trump administration could use this forgotten court to fully pursue its mass deportation goals. “If there’s something nefarious afoot,” he wrote, “it’s meaningfully smaller than that in scale.” Vladeck described it as “scalpel, not a bazooka.” Nonetheless, he argued, “the fact that the government had never previously used this process in the 30 years it’s been on the books speaks to the discomfort that just about everyone who’s ever looked carefully at the statute has come away with.”

Gavoor explained that the government has to eventually lay out what the case is about, even if most of the relevant information is kept classified. “We’ll find out maybe in the next couple weeks what comes to bear,” he said. “But it’s a first-time use of a court. It’s like getting into a car that came out of the factory 30 years ago but has never been started. There are all kinds of questions about how it’s going to work.”

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Tribes and Environmental Groups Sue to Block Trump’s Gutting of the Endangered Species Act

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Environmental groups and tribes are suing the Trump administration over a new rule eliminating the majority of habitat protections for imperiled wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Experts say the rule represents the most profound change to the law since it was first enacted in 1973, paving the way for more development and industrial activities that will likely harm vulnerable animals and plants. It’s the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to weaken the Endangered Species Act in ways that will benefit politically powerful industries like oil and gas.

First proposed in April, the finalized rule will rescind the law’s longstanding regulatory interpretation of “harm,” which is defined as any significant habitat modification or degradation that kills or injures wildlife. The administration said in a press release last week that the law’s core protections remain “firmly in place,” but that rescinding the harm definition will “reduce unnecessary permitting, cut compliance costs, and eliminate confusion for landowners, small businesses, energy producers, farmers, ranchers and local governments.”

“The Trump administration is pretending like that requirement just doesn’t exist. So we’re trying to enforce that law and make sure that the Trump administration enforces it too.”

“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended.”

A coalition of nine environmental groups and two Washington tribes filed separate lawsuits this week contesting the decision. They argue that rescinding the harm rule is prohibited by the ESA’s statutory language and defies the core goal of the law, given that habitat loss is the primary driver of extinction.

“It’s so intuitive, and it’s also the law that endangered species need to have habitat, or they can’t survive,” said Ben Levitan, a senior attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, which filed one of the lawsuits alongside the Center for Biological Diversity, Oregon Wild, the Sierra Club, and several other nonprofits. “The Trump administration is pretending like that requirement just doesn’t exist. So we’re trying to enforce that law and make sure that the Trump administration enforces it too.”

The ESA prohibits the “take” of an endangered species, which includes actions “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.” Historically, the “harm” part of this mandate encompasses “any activity that can modify a species’ habitat.”

This statute has been the “single most important tool for protecting habitat on non-federal land,” according to Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School. More than two-thirds of species listed under the Endangered Species Act depend at least in part on private lands, with 10 percent residing only on such property.

A 2019 study found that 81 percent of the species listed under the ESA from 1975 to 2017 were threatened or endangered due to habitat loss and degradation, as opposed to direct causes such as hunting. That includes the desert tortoise and the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Rather than blocking projects altogether, the “harm” rule has typically required companies to adjust operations to minimize their impact on endangered species, Parenteau said. That could mean adjusting the timing of construction to avoid disrupting a listed bird species’ breeding season or moving a road project so it won’t cut off grizzly bears’ access to habitat and food.

But the provision can be a thorn in the side of industries that often overlap with wildlife habitat, said Dave Owen, an environmental law professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. He published a 2012 study that found the majority of habitat protections offered by the ESA fall under the harm definition.

“Protecting species is in large part about protecting habitat, and avoiding habitat modification that causes harm has been a big part of how the Endangered Species Act provides those protections,” he said. “For many years, regulated industries have complained about that.”

This tension came to a head in 1995 amid a legal dispute over forests that timber interests wanted to cut down, but that overlapped with the habitat of vulnerable northern spotted owls and red-cockaded woodpeckers. The Supreme Court maintained the harm definition, ruling in favor of the species’ protection.

But the Trump administration argues that this interpretation was an “unlawful regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights,” according to the July 10 press release.

The April proposal to rescind the definition triggered a wave of backlash from conservationists and the public. Approximately 358,000 public comments were filed on the proposed rule, many condemning the action as extinction fodder. Others supported the change, which they said would reduce regulatory hurdles for landowners and industry. The Forest Landowners Association submitted a comment in May that the change would “create efficiencies for the regulated community and align the statutory interpretation of ‘take’ more closely with Congress’s original intent.”

“Because salmon is both food and spiritual nourishment for Swinomish Community members, I fear for the health of our people and our cultural lifeways.”

The rule will go into effect on September 14. But a coalition of tribes and environmental groups hope to overturn it. Several cases have been filed so far, including a lawsuit spearheaded by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and Squaxin Island Tribe in the US District Court for Western Washington.

The Swinomish Tribe submitted thousands of pages of scientific literature during the public comment period that its leaders say shows the importance of habitat protection for endangered species such as the culturally important—and vulnerable—salmon that swim in their waters.

“This rule will worsen salmon habitat conditions and without question that will reduce salmon stocks,” Tandy Wilbur, a Swinomish senator and fisheries manager, said in a statement. “Because salmon is both food and spiritual nourishment for Swinomish Community members, I fear for the health of our people and our cultural lifeways.”

The Trump administration did not answer questions from Inside Climate News about these legal actions or how the federal government will provide habitat protection for threatened and endangered species after rescinding the harm definition.

Every species protected by the ESA could be hurt by the rule change, experts warn.

“If you’re taking away the most important tool under the Endangered Species Act to protect most of the habitat that the species need to survive, they won’t,” said Parenteau. Without the harm rule, species already struggling with myriad threats from human activities will be further exposed, he explained: “The manatees starve because the water’s polluted. The salmon can’t spawn because the waters are sedimented and too hot.”

Since President Donald Trump regained office, his administration has hammered away at the ESA in pursuit of “energy dominance” and more widespread development. Other proposed changes aim to reduce the number of species afforded the highest level of protection under the law and agencies’ ability to protect species against rapid global warming. In March, a rarely tapped panel of high-level officials nicknamed the “God Squad” agreed to exempt federally regulated oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico from complying with the ESA, which environmental groups challenging the action in court say could drive rare species such as the Rice’s whale to extinction.

The harm rule change could eventually end up before the Supreme Court, as it did in 1995. But Owen said this may backfire on the plaintiffs because the court, far more conservative now than it was a generation ago, could enshrine the change in a “much more lasting way than would happen just through a regulatory amendment alone.”

Asked about this, Earthjustice’s Levitan said the law and science are “on our side.”

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Florida’s Nursing Homes Are Bracing for Life Without Haitian TPS Workers

This week, about 350,000 Haitians in the US will lose their legal status in light of a US Supreme Court decision on June 25 that allows the Trump administration to gut the Temporary Protected Status program.

For decades, immigrants from countries rocked by natural disasters or armed conflict have sought refuge in the US under the program, which grants them work permits and protection from deportation as long as they pass regular background screenings. But in the last year, as part of its anti-immigrant agenda, the Trump administration has aimed at decimating TPS protections for more than 1 million immigrants from countries such as Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia and Burma. The latest US Supreme Court ruling explicitly targets TPS holders from Haiti and Syria.

No other state will feel the repercussions of the loss of Haitian TPS recipients more than Florida, where about half of the 350,000 in the US now live. Among them is a woman I will call Nina, a certified nursing assistant. She spoke to me last week on the condition that she remain anonymous given her precarious legal status. Nina and her two children left Haiti soon after the earthquake in 2010, which prompted the US government to include Haitians in the TPS program.

Nina started working in retail and later obtained her CNA license, and currently works at two nursing homes. She’s one of about 35,000 Haitians in Florida under TPS who work within the health care industry as nurses, for instance, or home health aids. She provides care to residents, helping them with feeding, grooming, and bathing. “Sometimes you get people who don’t have family or friends,” she told me. “We are their family.” At the height of the Covid pandemic, when visits from family and friends were cancelled, she held the hands of patients on their deathbeds.

Nina told me she will report to work until she can no longer do so legally. TPS protections, including work permits, are scheduled to expire on July 24.

“I try to keep a smile on my face, but my world is upside down,” she told me. “I do love my country, but right now is not the right time (to return).” She described how her former neighborhood in Port-au-Prince has been overrun by the violent gangs that have infiltrated much of the island nation in recent years. The US Department of State has warned Americans to avoid travel to the country, citing armed conflict between these gangs, the risk of kidnappings and other violent crimes, and a ban on US commercial flights to the main airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince after several planes were struck by gunfire. “My country is still a war zone,” she said, her voice sounding tired. “Going back right now is a death sentence.”

“My country is still a war zone. Going back right now is a death sentence.”

The multiple crises that TPS recipients are experiencing as a result of the Supreme Court decision and the subsequent actions of the Trump administration have reverberated throughout Florida. I spoke with leaders of health care trade associations, immigration attorneys, and health care workers to understand what this means for the medical field at a time of staffing shortages and increased demand. “Take a look at the economics about what the impact is going to be on healthcare, on hospitality, on our farm workers, every major sector across the US,” said Sui Chung, executive director of Americans for Immigrant Justice, a legal nonprofit in Miami. “In Florida, I think people have to really understand what the impact is going to be.” Haitian TPS holders contribute $2.6 billion to Florida’s economy each year, according to data released by the Haitian Bridge Alliance and other groups in January. And that does not begin to account for the human cost on people who receive necessary care from those workers.

The concerns prompted the Florida Health Care Association, which represents hundreds of assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and rehabilitation centers in the state, to write to the US Department of Homeland Security requesting an exemption for their workers, the Florida Phoenix reported.

“Florida is home to one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing older adult populations, and demand for long-term care services continues to increase each year,” the letter reads. It describes “an exceptionally competitive labor market,” meaning that finding qualified workers has been challenging. “Any significant reduction in the available workforce would make it more difficult to serve current and new residents, causing a ripple effect that could overwhelm our local hospitals and the entire healthcare system.”

In recent years, Florida has ranked last in the country in the availability of home health care workers, Kyle Simon, senior director of communications at the Home Care Association of Florida, which represents thousands of providers in the state, told me. The TPS issue is “something else that’s going to create more of a workforce challenge,” he added.

Denise Bellville, the association’s executive director, told me about a case in which one provider will have to dismiss six nurses who are providing at-home care to children. “You don’t want the kids to go to a higher level of care, but the care is not able to be provided by family members,” Bellville said. “So now, what happens?” Employers are faced with dismissing employees who are otherwise doing their jobs—or risk a visit from ICE, a growing concern for providers who employ immigrants. “I worry that the patients are going to end up in a higher level of care.”

Margarette Nerette, a vice president for the 1199SEIU Florida, the largest healthcare worker union in the state, has been deluged with calls from union members seeking advice. She estimates that in South Florida, more than 200 workers are here under TPS. At one nursing home, roughly 30 of its 100 employees are TPS holders. “I don’t know how we’re going to survive this,” said Nerette, who is Haitian and is a US citizen. She left her country more than 30 years ago. “The workers are suffering, but the patients are going to suffer more.”

A further staffing shortage means that caregivers must attempt to figure out how much time they can dedicate to each patient. Nina, who is a member of 1199SEIU, told me it’s common for her to be assigned at least 10 residents during day shifts and up to 20 at night. “We’re running,” she said. “When you get home, you’re exhausted.”

In the end, the patients most likely to bear the brunt of the end of TPS are the elderly, Nerette told me. “One thing I would like to do is challenge all the elected officials,” she said, “come to the nursing home, walk one day in our shoes to feel like what the job is all about.”

“One thing I would like to do is challenge all the elected officials: come to the nursing home, walk one day in our shoes to feel like what the job is all about.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Congress have been considering a bill that would preserve legal protections for Haitians until 2029. It has drawn bipartisan support, including from Republicans from Florida such as US Reps. Carlos Gimenez, Maria Elvira Salazar, and Mario Díaz-Balart. “Haiti is a failed state, and I think that deporting Haitians who are under TPS right now, back to Haiti would be a huge mistake,” Gimenez told CBS News on July 5. The measure passed the House in April, and is now up for consideration in the Senate.

On the ground in South Florida, where most of Florida’s TPS community lives, immigrant advocacy groups such as Americans for Immigrant Justice are mobilizing to help Haitians assess their options.

“TPS holders don’t know what’s next for them,” Chung, the legal nonprofit’s executive director, said. “It is such a sense of terror and disbelief that they could be returned to a country that is so completely in chaos and so very dangerous.” She’s particularly concerned about family separations as parents struggle with the “difficult choice” of whether to leave their US-born children behind.

Employers are seeking legal guidance as well. Attorney Eddy Laguerre, who is Haitian and practices immigration law in Miami, said he has received calls from hospital executives and nursing home directors wondering about how to sponsor work visas for their employees—a process, he explains, that could take years. And if a TPS holder lived in the US at some point without documentation, that means they would need to apply while living in Haiti.

In the last few weeks, he’s watched his community grapple with panic and confusion. Many of his clients work in the healthcare sector, including some who came to the US as minors. Some may apply for green cards if they’re married to a US citizen or have adult children who were born here. He’s seen comments on social media pointing out that TPS is, as its name suggests, a temporary protection. But he wants the public to understand that many here under TPS are unlikely to have other pathways to become documented. “I’m talking about people with clean records and good jobs in the healthcare industry or other industries,” he said. “If they have TPS for so many years, it’s only because the system is not offering anything else.”

Nina had no idea what will happen to her and her family after her TPS status expires. Her mother, who is quadriplegic, is in a nursing home. Her children have built lives here as TPS holders. At work, she finds solidarity among her colleagues facing the same situation.

“We try to lift each other up. Whenever we hear some kind of information, we try to share it,” she said. “We try to support each other. That’s what we can do for now.”

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Oceans Are Absorbing Huge Amounts of Heat—and Sending Some of It Ashore

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

It’s barely the middle of summer in the northern hemisphere, and heat waves are once again breaking temperature records.

In the United States, dozens of cities sweltered through their hottest Fourth of July celebrations, with temperatures over 100 degrees F. In New Jersey alone, dozens died from the heat over that weekend. European authorities have linked thousands of deaths during the end of June to heat-related causes. And last Thursday, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that Western Europe had experienced the hottest June ever recorded in the region.

Last year, more people died from heat than from road crashes in Europe, says data scientist Ruth Engel.

The seas are running a fever, too. It was also the hottest June on record for the world’s oceans, according to Copernicus. Nearly 40 percent of ocean area worldwide is undergoing a marine heatwave, with intense hot patches in the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean more than 10 degrees F hotter than usual. It’s the latest in a wave of ocean warming that began in 2023, fueling devastating cyclones and damaging the majority of the planet’s coral reefs.

As humans burn fossil fuels, the oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by the resulting greenhouse gases, causing them to warm. Waters at the surface also exchange heat and moisture with the atmosphere, helping to drive hotter temperatures and more extreme weather. A recent study found that at least a fifth of heatwaves on land begin in the ocean.

“Heat is one of the features of climate change that has already arrived,” said Ruth Engel, a data scientist for environmental health and extreme heat with the World Resources Institute. “It’s not something we need to prepare for 25 years from now. It’s already a deadly health issue now.”

In mild climates and historically hot ones alike, extreme heat has become an expected part of summer, Engel said. Last year, more people died from extreme heat than from road crashes in Europe, she added.

Because weather, climate, and oceans are so intertwined, it can take months for scientists to pinpoint the cause of any one heat event. But there are some early clues that can help researchers connect weather events to ocean heatwaves, said Zachary Labe, a scientist at Climate Central, a research nonprofit.

For example, scientists suspect that the recent heatwaves across Europe are tied to extra-warm temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea, he said. And the high temperatures and humidity causing Floridians to crank up their air-conditioners are probably related to a marine heatwave with water temperatures near 90 degrees F off the state’s Gulf coast. Unusually warm temperatures in the Pacific Ocean may have helped set up a weather pattern driving a potentially record-breaking heatwave forecast for the central and northern U.S. in the coming week, he said.

“The current patterns that are creating these heat domes are similar to those we’ve seen before,” Labe said. “But climate change is just acting to boost everything.” Essentially, warmer global temperatures mean worse consequences when extreme weather does hit, he said.

A hotter planet means more intense effects from El Niños and La Niñas.

Hotter air also makes the atmosphere spongier and capable of holding more water. For every 1 degree C of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7 percent more moisture. It also holds onto the water for longer. That means more time between rainfalls, and heavier, more dangerous deluges when rain does fall.

Scientists have linked climate change to heavy rainfall events such as the one that flooded Central Texas last summer. In recent days, Super Typhoon Bavi bore down on the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific. It’s the second super typhoon with the “fingerprint of climate change” to form in the region in a handful of months.

Ocean warming is also a direct cause of sea level rise thanks to a phenomenon known as thermal expansion. As the seas warm, they expand and push further up coastlines, setting the stage for storms like Bavi to cause greater damage.

And recently, a recurring pattern of warm water known as El Niño began cycling through the Pacific, adding even more extreme weather to the equation. That’s because El Niño churns up some of the heat that the ocean absorbs, bringing it toward the surface where it interacts with the atmosphere and reshapes weather around the world. This year’s emerging event, considered a “super El Niño,” has an 81 percent chance of becoming one of the strongest in history, according to a recent forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That means global average temperatures are likely to remain elevated well into early next year, said Matthew England, a professor of physical oceanography and climate science at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “The first year of an El Niño cycle tends to be on the warm side, but the records are generally broken in the second year,” he said.

Every El Niño is different, but each one comes with predictable effects that can help forecasters figure out what to expect, said Alex Sen Gupta, a professor at the Climate Change Research Center, also at the University of New South Wales.

In general, El Niño years are associated with heavier rainfall in places like California and South America and drier conditions across Australia and Southeast Asia. And although El Niño tends to suppress hurricanes near the United States, other regions tend to see stronger cyclones with more rainfall.

There isn’t evidence yet that climate change is making El Niños or La Niñas (the inverse pattern of cool water that forms in intervening years) stronger. But a hotter planet means more intense effects from both of them, Sen Gupta said. And while scientists need more years of data to say for sure, some have hypothesized that the swings between strong El Niño and La Niña years are becoming more frequent.

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War’s Escalation in Iran Is an Attack on Civilians’ Basic Needs

As the US military announced an eighth consecutive night of strikes on Saturday against Iran’s military systems, it also reportedly hit the country’swater and energy facilities, food storage sites, and bridges.

Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce their usage of electricity and air conditioning following the American strikes.

Breaking: U.S. Strike Hits Desalination and Power Facilities Near Jask, Cutting Water to Villages

Iranian officials said U.S. forces struck power infrastructure and desalination plants at the port of Bonji village near Jask at 4:44 a.m., cutting off water supplies to several… pic.twitter.com/fp6sXARS6i

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) July 18, 2026

Iran has also struck American allies across the Gulf, including an attack at a military facility in Jordan on Friday that left two US service members dead and one missing. Officials in Kuwait said Iran hit a power and water desalination plant on Friday. The next day, the country’s government said Iran attacked the same plant again. Approximately 90 percent of Kuwait’s water supply comes from desalination plants.

The escalation in hostilities comes a month after the Trump administration and Iran’s leadership signed an interim ceasefire agreement that opened up negotiations to end the war. But that deal has fallen apart amid clashes over the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping pathway where about one-fifth of global crude oil and natural gas passed through before the war began in February.

The strikes look likely to continue asIranian officials said Saturday that the country was dropping its commitments to the interim deal. Air raid sirens were heard across Jordan on Sunday, the New York Times reported.

Meanwhile, American officials told the Times that the United States was sending more warplanes to the Middle East, a move that was in the works, along with hitting more Iranian infrastructure, even before the soldiers’ deaths.

Erika Guevara Rosas, a senior director at Amnesty International, told the Guardianin April that although key infrastructure can qualify as a military target, facilities like power plants are essential for meeting the basic needs of civilians. Therefore, “attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law, and could amount to a war crime.”

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What Do We Really Know About the Microplastics Building Up Inside Us?

This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Scientists have been documenting the presence of microplastics in our oceans and soils, in air, drinking water, and food for more than a decade. More recently, peer-reviewed studies have revealed the presence of microplastics in the human body. But how much plastic do we consume, where is it coming from, and what is it doing to us?

Cassandra Rauert, an environmental chemist at the University of Queensland, in Australia, conducts research to better understand the impacts of such exposures. Her work has shown that current techniques used for detecting plastic in humans are vulnerable to contamination from lab equipment. And last year, she published an attention-grabbing paper that found lipids present in blood can give false positives for the most commonly produced plastic, polyethylene. All of which suggests that some reported levels of microplastics in humans may be overestimated.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Rauert describes how, after learning about the potential for microplastics to infiltrate a lab—whether from construction materials, equipment, clothing, or the air—she and her fellow researchers painstakingly rebuilt their workspace, using glass and steel, to drastically reduce the odds of contamination. The hope is that once researchers can accurately measure levels of microplastics in human tissue and blood, they’ll be able to determine what exactly plastic pollution is doing to us.

“I don’t think we’ve got really good evidence at all for what effects [microplastics] might be having,” Rauert says. And the much-hyped finding that we eat a credit card’s worth of plastic each week? “That has absolutely been debunked.”

Why is it so hard to study microplastics in the human body?

It’s quite a new field. And we’re trying to use analytical techniques that were developed for other purposes.

A few years ago, when we first started thinking about human exposure to plastics, we were like, “Oh, we should test some blood and just see what’s in there.” I tested a little bit of my blood and saw screamingly high levels of polyethylene. It just didn’t make sense. When I think about my diet, I’m not eating a lot of plastic-packaged foods. So that’s when we first started to think, “Okay, is there something else going on here with the analysis that we haven’t considered before?”

“We’re talking about very small particles and fibers. You can’t see them—that’s how small—and they’re always in the air around us.”

We assessed how reliable current measures are for trying to find microplastics in blood. And what we found is that lipids and fats will give you a false positive for polyethylene. Lipids are made up of the same building blocks as polyethylene, so when we analyze them, they look identical in our analysis instrument. This means that we can mistake a signal from a lipid for polyethylene if we don’t look at the data carefully.

In a paper you published last year, you found that 18 previous studies on microplastics in human blood had this issue.

We were putting [the study] out there to say that you need to think about the data that’s coming out of your instrument, because there’s potential that these lipids, these fats, will give you a false positive. To our knowledge, these previous studies didn’t know about this issue and haven’t considered it, and future studies really should.

Another challenge, you found, is that plastic is absolutely everywhere, including in lab equipment.

In a normal chemistry lab, you’re surrounded by plastics. You have plastic pipettes. You have plastic Petri dishes. Plastics are quite necessary. They can be sterile. They’re single use. They have their purpose, but it means that you’ve got the potential for a lot of plastics to be shedding and to be in the lab around you.

We’re talking about very small particles and fibers. You can’t see them—that’s how small—and they’re always in the air around us. If you’re not conscious of this, these small particles and fibers can be accidentally falling into your sample. Or if your sample has touched plastic—for instance, a urine sample that’s stored in plastic—there’s a potential for some of the plastic to come off, which can contaminate your sample.

You overhauled your lab to get rid of plastic contamination. What was involved?

We worked with an architect, and we built the lab pretty much from scratch. The first thing we had to work out is what to build the lab out of. We tested about 30 different construction materials trying to find some that didn’t contain plastics, but also didn’t contain plastic [additives] such as phthalates, but we couldn’t find any. Everything had either plastics or phthalates in them.

“You really don’t realize how much plastics you use in your everyday life until you start purposely looking for it.”

We can’t have any wood or cardboard in the lab. It can get mold. It can get bacteria. So we ended up going with stainless steel. It was the only way to not have any plastics. Even when you put a glass panel in the window, you have silicon holding the glass in. We tested all these different brands of silicon to try to find ones that had low levels of phthalates. It was a crazy amount of detail that we went to, but it was really worth it.

We ended up with three interconnected rooms, and they’re all positive pressure. The idea is that when you open the door, it pushes contamination out rather than bringing it in with you. And then when we commissioned the lab, the first thing we did was put background samplers in there to see what was in the air. In the lab, the plastics and the phthalates are about a hundred times lower than in our normal lab.

Is it a little bit disturbing to consider that plastics are so ubiquitous that you have to build a clean room from the ground up just to be able to study them?

It’s definitely made me think about my house a lot and all of the plastic consumer products that I have, and all the plastic stuff I have in my kitchen, which I have now been exchanging for metal and wood. You really don’t realize how much plastics you use in your everyday life until you start purposely looking for it. It’s just a given. You just grow up with it.

As far as we know, how does plastic typically enter our bodies?

We do know that, in terms of what’s in the air around us, we have higher concentrations inside our houses. We know a lot of these [plastic additives] end up in the dust in your house, so absolutely vacuuming more often is a great way to get rid of these.

And what are the biggest sources of plastic in your home?

We’ve been looking at residential balconies, and we’re seeing high concentrations of [particles from] tires [which are made with synthetic polymers]. There’s a potential for tire [particles] to be getting into your house dust. We still don’t have huge amounts of information on that.

In terms of what you’re breathing in, it’s probably going to be mostly from synthetic fibers. If you’re using your dryer a lot, and you’re putting your polyester or your nylon products in the dryer, you’re shedding a lot of fibers. We recommend not using your dryer for those materials. See if you can hang them up.

But the biggest sources around your house are probably going to be what you’re preparing your food with. If you’re using a plastic chopping board, small pieces of plastic are being cut out of that and landing in your food. Using plastic kitchen utensils is probably not a good idea. I would change those over to bamboo or wood or metal. Heating your food in a plastic container will shed more of those plastics as well.

Do we really eat a credit card’s worth of plastic each week?

That has absolutely been debunked. We’ve been looking at what sheds from plastic food containers under different conditions, and they do shed plastics, and we can measure it, but it’s absolutely not that much plastic.

What are some of the outstanding questions for researchers?

I think the first thing is we don’t actually know what we’re exposed to. What plastic food containers actually shed plastics, and what do they look like? What size are they? We know that when we’re doing a load of washing, it releases fibers. Using your dryer will release synthetic fibers. But if we are inhaling those fibers, do we just cough them up again, or can they actually get deeper into our lungs?

And while we know a lot about the impact of chemicals added to plastic—such as phthalates, which have been shown to impact fertility, or bisphenols, which have been linked to Type 2 diabetes—we know very little about what effect the plastic particles themselves might be having.

Yeah, we do know that we are exposed to a lot of plastic [additives]. And we know that they’re endocrine disruptors. We’ve been monitoring them and analyzing them for decades.

I don’t think we’ve got really good evidence at all for what effects [microplastics particles on their own] might be having on human bodies. If we’re eating plastics, what size and what type of plastic can actually get into the bloodstream?

The majority of plastic [particles] that we know we are exposed to are too big to cross from our gut into the bloodstream—only very small particles can do this—therefore, we excrete them out. This mechanism hasn’t been studied in detail, but analysis of stool samples has shown a wide variety of plastic particles in them.

We still have very little knowledge of the smallest-sized plastics though, so we don’t know how many of these are excreted or how many can cross the barriers in our body. And I think we need to understand that a bit more so that we can then direct toxicology studies as well.

Also, a lot of the toxicology studies, especially in the past, have tended to use [lab-grade] polystyrene spheres as their representative microplastic particle. That’s the only standard that has been available to use in a toxicology study. But we’re not exposed to perfect spheres of polystyrene. If it’s going to be polystyrene, it’s going to be a fragment or a shard. So it’s not really representative.

It has long been a tactic of corporations to resist regulation by saying not enough is known about their products’ health impacts. Do you see that happening here?

Well, we do know that in terms of pollution, plastic is horrendous, and it just keeps building up because we just keep producing new plastics. We need to stop using so much plastic and so much single-use plastic.

I know it is easy to say we don’t have enough information yet, but we do know about [the health risks from] these chemicals that are in all the plastics that your food is wrapped in. From that perspective, it is still a good idea to reduce plastics or eliminate them where possible.

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Police Keep Losing Their Jobs For Using Flock Cameras To Stalk People

Flock cameras—solar-powered, automated license plate readers, weighing less than 3 pounds and designed to be unobtrusive—can be found on 80,000 street corners throughout the country. The company behind the cameras built an $8.3 billion business empowering officers to track people’s movements. Nationwide, Flock cameras log billions of license plates each month. And now dozens of reports are emerging of police using the cameras not to solve crimes, but to stalk their partners and exes.

Over a two-month period in 2025, Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala searched the license plate number of someone he was dating over 200 times, according to court documents. He also searched for his partner’s ex.

Another Milwaukee officer, Tehrangi Chapman, was assigned to investigate Ayala’s case. Ayala was charged with misconduct, resigned, and was sentenced to one year’s probation. Then, this week, Chapman too was charged with “misuse of GPS information.” While investigating Ayala, he allegedly engaged in the exact same misconduct, using the technology to track people in his own life.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, identified at least 24 similar cases nationwide of officers using automated license-plate reader (ALPR) cameras like Flock to stalk romantic interests over the past two years. Nearly all of those officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs.

This month alone, at least six new cases were reported in local media outlets. Beyond Chapman’s case in Wisconsin, officers in Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, California, and Georgia all lost their jobs due to alleged misuse of Flock cameras.

Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, has been following technology and privacy issues for over a decade. “The tracking of an individual vehicle, as it moves throughout an area, can reveal very deeply personal and private information, not only about the vehicle but the person operating it,” Marlow said. “That is Flock at its most dangerous.” (Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Six years ago, Mother Jones’ Daniel Moattar detailed how some of California’s most populous counties were collecting information using ALPRs—mostly tracking people who weren’t even under suspicion of any crime. And in 2013, the ACLU said that just 47 of every million plates scanned by Maryland ALPRs that year “were even tentatively associated with actual serious crimes.”

But in the years since then, police use of ALPRs has increased across the country. The cameras have been used to go after immigrants without warrants, and to track people seeking abortions as they travel across state lines for the procedure. Though there are several companies that make ALPRs, Flock is by far the largest, with more than 80,000 cameras spread throughout the United States. Flock’s CEO, Garrett Langley, has said he wants his cameras “on every corner.”

But the backlash against Flock and other ALPRs is growing. The technology, activists say, holds potential for misuse. And even when it’s used as intended, some researchers say the company’s data sharing practices lead to privacy rights violations. Throughout 2025, at least 30 municipalities canceled their Flock contracts. Grassroots groups such as DeFlock have built maps showing the public where these license-plate readers are located. (Langley called DeFlock and other activists “terroristic” last year, and apologized this week.)

And Marlow of the ACLU expects the pushback to keep getting louder. “In these incredibly divisive political times, we’re actually seeing the rare issue that unites Americans: opposition to government surveillance,” Marlow said. “And I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think this movement is only going to grow.”

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Assault, Misogyny, Verbal Threats: Records Detail New Allegations Against Rep. Max Miller

In mid-March, two detectives, an Ohio county Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) caseworker, and a Cleveland Clinic physician met on Zoom to discuss how the 2-year-old daughter of a congressman and granddaughter of a US senator wound up with a broken collarbone.

“The bruising surrounding the clavicle fracture made the injury suspicious,” wrote one of the detectives who summarized the Zoom meeting. Further, someone on the call “advised the injury would have required a high degree of impact to occur.”

Neither the child’s father, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), nor mother, conservative policy adviser Emily Moreno, admitted to knowing what caused their daughter’s injury or that it occurred while their daughter was under their care. Miller’s primary theory was that the bruising resembled marks from a seat belt. Moreno, who discovered the bruises and took the child to an emergency room, suggested the cause may have been something more sinister. Records of the investigation into potential child abuse show that Moreno told detectives that Miller had previously thrown hot water at her, shoved her, and held a gun to her head; therefore, she couldn’t rule out that Miller caused their daughter’s fracture. Moreover, a child protection specialist reviewing the incident had characterized the bruising near the fracture as resembling a “handprint.”

“Daddy’s house is scary,” Moreno recounted her daughter saying, according to a Bay Village, Ohio, investigative report relating to the February 2026 injury.

The summary of the Zoom meeting and investigative report are among more than 2,000 pages of court filings and police reports pertaining to Miller that Mother Jones obtained through public records requests. The trove of documents contains allegations of drug use by Miller, misogyny and verbal abuse, and violent behavior against multiple women. The filings also include evidence that Miller implicitly threatened his ex-father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno.

“Take this however you want, everyone is going to get to know you better than your wife does,” Miller wrote to Sen. Bernie Moreno. “Enjoy the ride brother, I wouldn’t have to do this if you could keep your lying daughter under control.”

Some of the accusations contained in the records have not been conclusively proven by a court or law enforcement agency, and it’s possible they never will be. Cuyahoga County’s DCFS investigation into possible child abuse was “unsubstantiated”—that is, there was not enough evidence to support a finding of neglect or abuse. Additionally, Emily Moreno never filed a police report against Miller for harm she says he inflicted on her; she told a detective investigating the collarbone fracture that she feared “no one would believe her.” Still, the records pose troubling questions about the conduct of a sitting lawmaker, and his ongoing and increasingly bitter legal battle with his ex-wife may complicate his reelection bid.

Throughout the legal filings, Moreno alleges that Miller was an absentee father and abusive husband whose history of violence and misconduct dates back more than a decade. Some of the accusations she raised are previously unreported, and Mother Jones has also identified new details about incidents that have already become public.

Responding to written questions from Moreno’s lawyer about whether Miller threw a girl down the stairs in high school, faced expulsion from college for a violent incident involving a female student, and left Moreno within three days of their child’s birth, Miller—over the course of the domestic proceedings—neither confirmed nor denied the events took place.

In domestic filings from May, Miller’s lawyer responded to these accusations: “Objection; relevance, scope of admissible evidence.”

Through spokesperson Chris Vlasto, Miller declined to respond to any of the detailed questions Mother Jones sent to his lawyers. Vlasto pointed to statements made to other news outlets in which Miller and his representatives denied Miller had committed violence against women, though none of his previous interviews address some of the new issues raised by Mother Jones.

For his part, Miller’s filings suggest he’s worried the accusations of domestic abuse and impropriety may harm his political campaign. According to a defamation lawsuit he filed against his ex-wife in May, Miller accuses Moreno of trying to “malign his character” and “undermine his odds at re-election to Congress.”

In a motion for dismissal of the defamation case later that month, Moreno accused Miller of trying to “silence a woman who has information about his misdeeds.”

“One of the more traumatic nights of my life”

Miller, 37, represents Ohio’s 7th District, a long, skinny region of Northeast Ohio that spans from the shore of Lake Erie all the way down to Amish country in Holmes County. He was first elected to Congress in November 2022, after serving as a senior White House aide in the first Trump administration. Miller married Moreno just a few months before his election. The wedding took place at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Donald Trump himself gave a celebratory speech. (Miller filed for divorce from Moreno exactly two years later, in August 2024.)

It took just a few years for Miller to rise from a low-level political aide to nabbing an early Trump endorsement to take the seat of a Republican incumbent, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez. A cousin, Eli Miller, had helped Max Miller get a small role on then-Sen. Marco Rubio’s ill-fated presidential campaign. After Rubio dropped out of the crowded Republican field, the two cousins both joined the 2016 Trump campaign.

At the time, his résumé was thin. After graduating from Cleveland State University three years earlier with a history degree, having briefly attended the University of Arizona beforehand, he joined the Marine Reserves. His previous work experience included a stint at Lululemon. But Trump quickly took a liking to the political neophyte. After the 2016 election, Miller served as director of Trump’s advance team, associate director of the Presidential Personnel Office, and eventually, deputy campaign manager for presidential operations. It was in the aftermath of the 2020 campaign cycle that Miller got his biggest opportunity yet.

Mother Jones has obtained further toxicology reports stating that Miller had MDMA—also known as ecstasy—and Klonopin in his system at the time of his 2011 car crash.

When Trump was looking to oust Gonzalez for backing his impeachment over the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Miller was an easy pick to replace him. “Max, great guy, I can tell you,” Trump said while introducing him at a July 2021 political rally 40 miles south of Cleveland. “He’s a great guy.”

Such was the headline of a 2021 profile of Miller that painted a picture of a young candidate with a troubled past. In the sprawling story published by Politico, journalist Michael Kruse interviewed more than 60 people and scoured court documents and police records from Miller’s adolescence and early 20s.

In 2007, Miller was arrested for reportedly punching a guy in the back of the head and running from police. Still in high school at the time, Miller pleaded no contest to the charges; the case was dismissed and then sealed, both Politico and the Washington Post reported.

A few years later, in 2010, Miller was cited for breaking a window at an apartment building in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, after getting into a “verbal altercation” with people he didn’t know at a hookah bar. “Miller said rather than striking a person, he hit the door and his hand went through the glass which cut his wrist,” says the police report obtained by Mother Jones. He required immediate surgery for his injury, the document says.

In April 2011, he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after crashing into a light pole at Miami University of Ohio. Upon questioning, Miller reported to police that he had consumed “two to three beers and several shots” the night before and then “woke up in urine.”

Records from Miami University police concluded that Miller’s blood alcohol content was under the legal limit, and he pleaded down to a misdemeanor for failing to control the car. “A blood test conclusively established that Mr. Miller was not impaired,” Miller’s attorney told Politico at the time.

However, Mother Jones has obtained further toxicology reports from the incident stating that Miller had MDMA—also known as ecstasy—and Klonopin in his system at the time of the crash.

That 2011 episode is the last time Miller is known to have been charged with a crime, not including some minor driving and parking violations. But the cache of records point to other allegations of violence and misconduct that were never reported to police. For instance, one of Moreno’s legal filings in their ongoing child custody case asked Miller to comment on the accusation that he pushed a female peer down a set of stairs during his high school years.

“Why did you not pursue a defamation lawsuit against [redacted] for alleging you pushed her down a flight of stairs?”

Miller’s response: “OBJECTION; relevance, scope of admissible evidence.”

According to Politico’s 2021 report, “Miller pushed a girl out the door of his room and she fell down some stairs after he became enraged when she resisted his attempts to touch her, according to three people who were there and many more who heard about the incident in the aftermath.”

Miller categorically denied to Politico that the altercation took place. But reached for comment this month, the woman in question told Mother Jones that while the event “happened 20 years ago,” it remains “one of the more traumatic nights of my life.”

Moreno’s lawyers brought up the alleged incident in a set of interrogatories: formal, written questions used in the discovery phase of a lawsuit. The named parties in the case must answer truthfully, under penalty of perjury, though their counsel can advise them to object to the question rather than provide an answer. Objecting does not imply culpability.

In his May filing, Miller denied some of the other allegations outright. For example:

“Admit that from January 1, 2025 to present you have consumed/used illegal drugs.”

Miller’s response: “DENY.”

“Admit that you were escorted out of a Marriott on October 30, 2025 after the Annual Red Mass.”

Miller’s response: “DENY.”

Among the accusations Miller did not explicitly deny in the legal document, Moreno accused her ex-husband of making a misogynistic comment about her body and being expelled from college over violence against a woman.

“Admit that you referred to the childbirth of your daughter as ‘setting your playground on fire.’”

Miller’s response: “Objection, relevance, scope of admissible evidence.”

“Why did you tell Defendant that you would not be present during the delivery of your minor child?”

Miller’s response: “OBJECTION; relevance, scope of admissible evidence.”

“Why did you leave Defendant and the minor child within seventy-two (72) hours of the minor child’s birth?”

Miller’s response: “OBJECTION; relevance, scope of admissible evidence.”

“Admit that you were expelled from college for an incident involving violence with a female student.”

Miller’s response: “Objection, relevance, scope of admissible evidence.”

In a quote from a June interview with the New York Post, Miller partially responded to the last claim.

“That’s absolutely ridiculous. I can prove to you that I’ve never been expelled from any college,” Miller said. “The only reason why we didn’t answer the question is because we don’t have to answer any question before December 18 of 2025 in court.”

Miller was referring to the admissible discovery period. In a May court filing, Miller claimed the judge stated from the bench that any admissible evidence should be from December 18, 2025, onward. Miller’s May filing also requested the judge to issue a formal ruling to clarify the cut-off date and stop Moreno from using discovery to “harass” Miller.

“Plaintiff is currently campaigning for reelection,” Miller’s motion said. “Defendant is using this litigation to attempt to torpedo Plaintiff’s political career.”

Still, nothing legally precluded Miller from denying allegations that would have taken place before December 2025 in the court filings, including the accusation of violence against a woman in college. In some cases, Miller both objected to the relevancy or admissibility of a claim and concurrently denied it.

“Admit that you were physically and emotionally abusive to Defendant during your marriage.”

Miller’s response: “Objection, relevance; otherwise, without waiving, DENY.”

“Please state if you have ever been indicted of any crime.”

Miller’s response: “OBJECTION; scope of admissible evidence. Without waiving any objection: never.”

Before publishing this story, Mother Jones again emailed Miller’s lawyers and spokesperson to request the congressman directly address the following question: “As a college student, were you ever involved in a physical or violent altercation involving a female student?”

Miller’s spokesperson replied, “We won’t be responding.”

Nor did the spokesperson respond to questions about the toxicology report that Mother Jones obtained or about an apparent threat Miller made by text to his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, which is documented in court filings.

“I’m sick of this, you know I never hurt our daughter. Take this however you want, everyone is going to get to know you better than your wife does,” Miller wrote to Bernie Moreno, according to an exhibit referenced in Emily Moreno’s motion for a restraining order. “Enjoy the ride brother, I wouldn’t have to do this if you could keep your lying daughter under control.”

Bernie Moreno’s office acknowledged receiving questions from Mother Jones but did not provide comment. Through her lawyer, Emily Moreno declined to comment.

In a separate filing from May, Miller was also accused of making misogynistic comments about Moreno’s attorney. He allegedly said the lawyer’s fiancée was “not much of a looker” and he could find lots of women like her “on a street corner for $10.” According to the filing, Miller also shouted at Moreno’s attorney, “Come at me!”

“I’m just a fuck up and worthless”

Moreno is not the only woman who has publicly accused Miller of violence. Stephanie Grisham, a White House press secretary from Trump’s first term, wrote in an October 2021 Washington Post excerpt of her book that Miller “got physical” with her when the two were dating in 2020.

Politico was more specific in its July 2021 article, recounting—according to three people familiar with the incident—that Miller “pushed [Grisham] against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.”

It sounded similar to an event Moreno described to the Bay Village Police Department when DCFS was investigating their child’s broken collarbone, the police records show.

“She went to pick up [redacted] at home and [redacted] grabbed [redacted] and threw her against the wall, which resulted in an obvious grab mark on her upper arm and bruising to her stomach and side where she hit the wall,” a detective wrote in summarizing what Moreno said.

In May, the Daily Mail published photos of the alleged abuse against Moreno, which were later included in court filings. The pictures depicted a bruise on Moreno’s arm and red splotches on her chest that the outlet said were the result of two separate incidents: the one in which Miller allegedly pushed Moreno into a wall and another in which he allegedly threw hot water at her. (Records show Moreno referenced both of these accusations in her police interview about their child’s broken collarbone.)

The Daily Mail also referenced a handwritten letter that Miller allegedly sent to Moreno after the water incident, which Moreno says took place in June 2024. “I don’t know what to do. I do know you love me, protect me, and care for me. I failed to do that for you,” Miller wrote, according to a picture of the letter in court filings. “It’s eating me alive. I love you even if you think I don’t. I love you so much. I’m so sorry. I’m just a fuck up and worthless.” Miller’s spokesperson, Vlasto, told the New York Post that the apology letter instead “relates to an argument between Congressman Miller and Emily Moreno’s father.”

Miller sued both Moreno and Grisham for defamation. In an October 2021 case, he contended that Grisham’s book excerpt is “replete with libelous and defamatory false statements” about him, including that he was violent toward her. He subsequently withdrew the lawsuit in 2023 after the pair settled their case.

About a week after the Daily Mail article, Miller also sued Moreno for defamation, alleging that she leaked information to the Daily Mail for the purpose of undermining his congressional campaign. (In court filings, Moreno denied speaking to the tabloid or urging anyone to do so on her behalf.)

In trying to defend his character after the Daily Mail article was published, Miller uploaded to social media a voice recording of Moreno that he had taped in 2024. He wrote in an X post that the recording proves “everything alleged by Stephanie Grisham was fabricated” and that he’s “never done anything to harm” Moreno.

This post landed Miller in another legal battle. In a lawsuit Grisham filed last week related to their 2021 case, Grisham says Miller broke the private terms of their settlement by disparaging her in public with his X post. Moreover, she says Miller’s summary of his own video recording is not accurate. In the 43-second clip, Moreno says “what Stephanie did to you is wrong.” Moreno does not say in the recording that Grisham lied about being abused.

“At no point in the recording does Moreno claim or admit that ‘everything alleged by Stephanie Grisham was fabricated,’” Grisham’s July 7 lawsuit says.

Responding to the Daily Mail story, Miller also shared a separate voice recording of Moreno with the New York Post; a subsequent legal filing contained a transcript of the recording.

According to the transcript, Moreno is heard saying, “You poured steaming hot water on me, and you’ve also, you, uh, you have been insanely emotionally abusive.”

Miller first said he “didn’t pour hot water on [her] neck.” He then said, “The water incident…I never thought that that hurt you.”

“It was never done to hurt you with intent. It never was done to hurt you, and you know that,” Miller explained.

Here, too, Miller may have inadvertently shot himself in the foot. In response to Miller’s defamation case, Moreno’s lawyer claims that Miller’s audio is effectively an admission that he threw hot water at Moreno.

“It is true or substantially true that Congressman Miller soaked her with hot water. Miller admits it in his own audio recording,” reads the supplemental filing.

For now, the defamation-related cases involving Grisham and Moreno are ongoing. As is Miller’s bid for reelection—though a recent poll shows he leads Democratic challenger Brian Poindexter by just 1 percent. A few weeks ago, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report also downgraded Miller’s race from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican.”

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The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 2

When the cryptocurrency exchange FTX imploded, customers around the world lost access to their money. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sent to prison. But the story didn’t stop there. For the past three and a half years, FTX has been in bankruptcy, a legal process that determines who will be paid back and how much they’ll receive.

From the start, some customers and FTX insiders have criticized the bankruptcy. Legal experts and a bipartisan group of senators objected to the law firm tapped to run it, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. But the bankruptcy court and an independent examiner signed off on the firm’s appointment as lead counsel.

Customers are now receiving compensation for their losses, but many say they’re being shortchanged. Instead of being paid in cryptocurrency, they’re receiving cash, with their claims pegged to the value of crypto when the market was at an all-time low.

“Under this plan, my contractual rights and my ownership rights have been trampled; my property rights have been disregarded,” says Lidia Favario, an Italian artist who argued in court that customers should be repaid in crypto, not cash.

This week on Reveal, in the second part of our series on FTX, we examine the decisions that shaped what’s become one of the most expensive bankruptcies in US history.

Read the FTX bankruptcy estate’s on-the-record statement to Reveal.

This is an update of a show that originally aired in October 2025.

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ICE Contractor Arrested For Shooting Protester

An ICE detention center employee shot a woman on Thursday night after a protest outside an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado, according to an Aurora Police Department statement released Friday afternoon. The center is operated by the private prison firm GEO Group, the largest recipient of private contracts with ICE to run immigration detention centers.

A GEO Group employee, Brandon Booth, was arrested on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder and other charges. The woman, who investigators said was part of the protest, was injured and taken to the hospital but is expected to survive. Another woman who was with her was not hurt.

According to the Aurora Police Department, Booth and other GEO Group staff were unable to enter the facility due to the protest. The two women argued with the employees and began walking away after taking photos of their cars. Booth then took out a personal firearm and fired one shot at the two women, hitting one of them in her lower body, before getting back into his car and driving away.

NEWS RELEASE: A man has been arrested in connection with a shooting that left a woman injured Thursday night.

Shortly before 7:30 p.m. on July 16, 2026, the Aurora Police Department responded to reports of a shooting in the 3100 block of N. Nome Street. Responding officers… pic.twitter.com/AqCgVsUpiV

— Aurora Police Dept (@AuroraPD) July 17, 2026

“We are aware that an off-duty Aurora ICE Processing Center employee was involved in a shooting incident,” a GEO Group spokesperson wrote in a statement. “This individual has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, and we will fully cooperate with law enforcement.”

“We remain committed to ensuring an ethical, thorough, objective, and comprehensive review of this case,” Aurora Chief of Police Todd Chamberlain said. “Violence of any kind will not be tolerated in Aurora. Constitutional rights are a pivotal part of a just society—violence is not.”

Allegations of violence against protesters have dogged GEO Group. An employee at Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center operated by GEO Groupin Newark, New Jersey, allegedly struck a protester with his car last month. Court records show that the employee at the center of those allegations, Thomas K. Brown, claimed protesters caused him to drive his red Dodge Challenger into the woman who was struck by hitting the driver’s side of his car.

Delaney Hall staff were also alleged to have beaten and punished detainees for speaking out and organizing to protest conditions within the facility. The employees, along with federal immigration agents, allegedly denied medical care, turned off ventilation, and deployed pepper spray. Advocates say conditions in the facility have not improved even after detainees held labor and hunger strikes and attention from media and lawmakers in June.

Earlier this month, the Adams County Health Department said that GEO Group was preventing it from conducting a health investigation required by state law of the same ICE detention center in Aurora, after a possible spread of tuberculosis in the facility. On Tuesday, the Guardian reported that at least 12 detainees tested positive. One detainee told the paper that those impacted by the outbreak are being isolated in areas without air conditioning. On Tuesday, ICE denied any active tuberculosis cases, but the next day, officials said that one person who had tested positive was “treated, cleared, and removed from the country.”

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