Politics

In a surprising and possibly unlawful act, five state legislators were denied entry Thursday into a taxpayer-funded migrant detention center deep in the Everglades, raising questions about what will happen behind the razor-wire fences that are being erected surrounding the controversial facility the state has named Alligator Alcatraz.

FlyUSA, a private aviation provider, gushed in a blog post that with final passage of the unpopular budget reconciliation package, "business jet ownership has never looked more fiscally attractive or more fun to explain to your accountant."

While this governmentwide review will cut only a small fraction of .gov websites, some agencies are making more drastic cuts to their online presence than others.

The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon cleared the way for the Trump administration to send a group of immigrants currently being held on a U.S. military base in the east African country of Djibouti to South Sudan. In a brief opinion, the justices made clear that their June 23 order, which paused an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts limiting the government’s ability to deport immigrants to countries that are not specifically identified in their removal orders, applies fully to the eight immigrants in U.S. custody in Djibouti.

In mid-June, a federal judge issued a stinging rebuke to the Trump administration, declaring that its decision to cancel the funding for many grants issued by the National Institutes of Health was illegal, and suggesting that the policy was likely animated by racism. But the detailed reasoning behind his decision wasn't released at the time. The written portion of the decision was finally issued on Wednesday, and it has a number of notable features.

Dozens of people who help coordinate travel for complex inspections of foreign drug-making factories have been let go, and though some have since been rehired, inspectors said the ongoing strain of policing an industry spread across more than 90 countries has exhausted staff and could compromise the safety of medications used by millions of people.

On the number of potential detainees

A federal judge Wednesday ruled as unlawful an executive order by President Donald Trump that barred asylum by claiming an “invasion” at the southern border and the need to protect states.

The unpopular legislation that set to clear the House Thursday is substantially more expensive than the version the chamber's Republicans approved in May, and it includes roughly $300 billion more in cuts to Medicaid. The bill now heads to the desk of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly pledged not to cut Medicaid.

The Federal Communications Commission will no longer enforce a rule capping the price of prison phone calls, according to an announcement made Monday by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

According to new court documents filed on Wednesday as part of a lawsuit his wife brought against the Trump administration, Mr Ábrego García and 20 other detainees were repeatedly beaten when they arrived at El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Centre, or Cecot.

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to remove a Democratic member from a federal labor board while his administration appeals a ruling that said her firing was illegal and had reinstated her.

For the past several years, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potential foreign corruption violations related to its activities in China and Mexico, according to the company’s financial filings.

NO KINGS 2.0 NATIONAL PROTEST - JULY 4TH, 2025 INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT TYRANNY

The release of the Guard members comes a day after the Associated Press reported that the top military commander in charge of the task force troops asked whether 200 could be returned to wildfire fighting duty, two U.S. officials told the AP. National Guard members perform a variety of duties, including helping to prevent and fight wildfires through Joint Task Force Rattlesnake.

“He didn’t even have to ask me. He has my approval,” Trump said during a roundtable discussion at the immigration detention center in the Everglades.

On Tuesday, Senate Republicans passed President Donald Trump’s intensely contested budget bill for the coming fiscal year, returning it to the House in a form that would slash $93 billion from annual federal Medicaid spending across the next decade, require states to implement Medicaid work requirements for adults (with limited exemptions), and strip health insurance from approximately 12 million people.

That’s thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott that requires autonomous vehicle companies to get state approval before operating without a driver — and gives the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles authority to revoke that approval if companies don’t follow safety standards.

Musk wanted legislators to pass new laws that would make it faster and easier for homeowners to install backup power generators, like the kind Tesla makes, on their properties. He wanted them to create new crimes so people who fly drones or interfere with operations at his rocket company SpaceX can be arrested. And he wanted to change who controlled the highway and public beach near SpaceX’s South Texas site so he can launch his rockets according to his timeline.

"One of the things I think that is exciting about this is, we're offering up our National Guard and other folks in Florida to be deputized to be immigration judges. We're working with the Department of Justice for the approvals. I'm sure Pam [Bondi] will approve," DeSantis said as Trump nodded his head and said, "Yep."

The Education Department began discontinuing the grants in April, claiming that schools diversifying their pool of psychologists are misusing the funds. President Donald Trump’s January executive order called on programs that foster diversity, equity and inclusion in schools to be cut.

Speaking on Tuesday on a panel of central bankers organised by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Portugal, Powell said the Fed was waiting to assess the inflationary impact of the president’s trade policies.

Cuts to the weather service by Trump and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) have left NWS local forecast offices critically understaffed throughout this year’s heightened severe weather. In April, an internal document reportedly described how cuts could create a situation of “degraded” operations – shutting down core services one by one until it reaches an equilibrium that doesn’t overtax its remaining employees.

But even though the land sales proposal was defeated, experts say federal lands face a slew of other threats from President Donald Trump’s administration. Agency leaders have proposed rolling back the “Roadless Rule” that protects 58 million acres from logging and other uses. Trump’s Justice Department has issued a legal opinion that the president is allowed to abolish national monuments. Regulators have moved to slash environmental rules to ramp up logging and oil and gas production. And Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce have gutted the ranks of the agencies that manage federal lands.

The Trump administration has codified its efforts to strip some Americans of their US citizenship in a recently published justice department memo that directs attorneys to prioritize denaturalization for naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes.

“Over the past several weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to members of the community, local leaders and stakeholders across the country,” Lee wrote on the social platform X on Saturday. “While there has been a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies — about my bill, many people brought forward sincere concerns.”

Instead of rooting out examples of anti-American ideology, however, commenters have responded by criticizing mosquitoes and staffing cuts and praising the parks’ natural beauty as well as its employees.

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a group of Maryland parents have a right to opt their elementary-school-aged children out of instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes. By a vote of 6-3, the justices agreed with the parents – who are Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox – that the Montgomery County school board’s refusal to provide them with that option violates their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion.

In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.

Relying on an emergency order issued in January 2023 in response to a flood of Cuban and Haitian migrants arriving by boat in the Florida Keys, DeSantis is seizing county land, mobilizing a team of private companies to build a facility big enough to hold 3,000 detained immigrants and deploying Florida National Guard troops to secure the site. The rush of migrant arrivals ended long ago, but the order, which cites then-President Joe Biden’s “inadequate” response to immigration, has been repeatedly extended.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify users’ ages to prevent access to minors.

The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health plans to fully cover many preventive health care services recommended by a federal panel.

Donald Trump’s realty firm is representing one of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies in its effort to offload a $12 million New York condo—an arrangement that represents yet another apparent conflict of interest for the 47th president of the United States.

“Democracy is at risk. Freedom is at risk,” he told attendees of a webinar Thursday.

“His work will be focused on improving the functionality of the Social Security website and advancing our mission of delivering more efficient service to the American people,” McGraw told Wired.

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in curbing nationwide injunctions granted against his birthright citizenship order, in a 6-3 ruling with the court’s Republican appointees in the majority and the Democratic appointees dissenting.

The Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority ended the term by ruling against the adult entertainment industry in a First Amendment case involving pornography. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court said the power to require age verification to access sexual content online is within a state’s authority to prevent children from accessing explicit content.

A battered dollar is taking another beating as investors, unnerved by fresh signs of an erosion in U.S. central bank independence, waste no time in pushing the greenback back to its lowest levels in over three years.

The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5% annual pace from January through March as President Donald Trump’s trade wars disrupted business, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in an unexpected deterioration of earlier estimates.

Federal agents on the lookout for undocumented immigrants to deport paid a visit recently to the offices of a state-funded children’s shelter in the Florida Keys.

Several former and current top aides of Attorney General Ken Paxton are trading explosive accusations in legal and administrative filings, the latest of which alleges that Paxton's right-hand deputy obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses during his 2023 impeachment.

Key elements of the sprawling Republican budget package—including major components of its assault on Medicaid—are crumbling under scrutiny from Democratic staffers and the Senate parliamentarian, who has deemed dozens of provisions in violation of reconciliation rules.

The Trump administration plans to limit sharing classified information with Congress after someone leaked an internal assessment suggesting that Saturday's bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities weren't as successful as President Trump claimed, four sources tell Axios.

In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that if states decide to unilaterally cut off Medicaid funding to a healthcare provider—in this case Planned Parenthood—patients cannot sue to stop them.

AI companies could have the legal right to train their large language models on copyrighted works — as long as they obtain copies of those works legally.

“The Trump administration’s decision to invoke a highly questionable regulation for terminating funds based on their changed ‘agency priorities’ is unlawful,” Colorado Attorney General Weiser said in a statement. “We are challenging this action because Colorado and other states accept hundreds of billions of dollars a year to combat violent crime, educate students, protect clean drinking water, conduct lifesaving medical and scientific research, and safeguard public health. All these priorities are at risk of funding cuts based on the misuse of this regulation.”

Judge James Donato ruled Tuesday night that Trump “applied the national security label to an unprecedented swath of federal agencies, including whole cabinet departments for the first time in history,” and “greatly exceeded” the scope of any other similar executive order.

The primary in staunchly liberal New York is likely to determine who becomes mayor in November's election.

Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old given unprecedented access to some of the most private information on Americans, has reportedly quit his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency according to Wired. If you don’t remember the name Coristine, you probably remember his nickname, the thing he reportedly told people to call him while he plundered the nation’s data. He went by Big Balls.

The Trump administration has launched a major reorganization of the U.S. fight against drug traffickers and other transnational criminal groups, setting out a strategy that would give new authority to the Department of Homeland Security and deepen the influence of the White House.

A longtime government lawyer told Congress that Justice Department leaders planned to knowingly defy court orders and withhold information from judges to advance the Trump administration's aggressive deportation goals, according to a newly published whistleblower complaint.

The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily lifted a lower court order that had required the Trump administration to give migrants the chance to challenge their deportation to a country other than their nation of origin, clearing the way for resumption of such removals and prompting a strongly worded dissent from the three liberal justices.

President Donald Trump's rapid pullback of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has cost Americans at least $18 billion in higher fees and lost compensation for consumers allegedly cheated by major companies, according to an analysis released Tuesday by two organizations.

The Trump administration is rolling back a landmark conservation rule from the Clinton era that prevents roadbuilding and logging on roughly 58 million acres of federal forest and wildlands.

Florida has begun building a detention centre - dubbed the 'Alligator Alcatraz' - to temporarily hold migrants on an air strip in the Everglades.

Narciso Barranco, 48, a landscaper from Tustin in Southern California, was left bloodied and visibly shaken after being violently detained by at least seven alleged immigration officers while working outside of an IHOP on Saturday.

An ultra-conservative federal judge in Texas has lobbed another hand grenade in his long-running battle to limit access to reproductive healthcare around the country—this time by vacating a privacy rule intended to shield abortion seekers and providers from criminal and civil state investigations.

Tesla told U.S. regulators that its answers to questions on the safety of its robotaxi deployment in Texas are confidential business information and should not be made public, according to a letter released on Monday.

In New York City’s version, voters get to rank up to five candidates, from first to last, on the ballot.

Both rideshare giants are pushing back against legislation that would require fingerprinting as part of a criminal background check of drivers in the state.

The notice to all House staff said that the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”

US warmaking is more subtle to the American public, but not less deadly to the countries we impose it on. Trump insisted in his address to the nation that he has no plans to keep attacking Iran as long as they “negotiate”. This is after Israel killed Iranian negotiators with US approval, and after Iran had made clear their terms of negotiating that the US just couldn’t accept. There’s no definition about what Iranian compliance would look like, setting the stage for further bombing campaigns whenever Trump decides. There might not be troops on the ground or a US military occupation, but a war they refuse to call one is still functionally a war. It still kills people. It still destabilizes countries.

The judge overseeing the case said on Sunday that Mr Ábrego García should be released from custody while he awaits trial. But she noted immigration officials would still have the power to detain him.

Awawdeh added that regardless of status, all immigrants are being targeted in these ramp-up enforcement operations, especially as previous pathways to legal status have been removed by the Trump administration.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer put off issuing any additional rulings and instead asked for briefings from both sides by noon Monday on whether the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil, is being violated in Los Angeles.

“Without a doubt, this is the best session I’ve ever had,” Abbott said during an interview with me last week.

New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was detained for several hours after being arrested at an immigration court. Lander, the city's chief financial officer, said he had been escorting a defendant when he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 'The rule of law is not fine and our constitutional democracy is not fine,' said Lander outside court after his release.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation grant funding.

The Environmental Protection Agency under Biden in 2024 set stringent vehicle emissions rules that aim to cut fleetwide tailpipe emissions for cars and light trucks by nearly 50% over 2026 levels in 2032 and drastically increase new electric vehicles.

In its decision, a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded it was likely Trump lawfully exercised his authority in federalizing control of the guard.

The conservative-dominated supreme court voted by seven to two to back a challenge by oil and gas companies, along with 17 Republican-led states, to a waiver that California has received periodically from the federal government since 1967 that allows it to set tougher standards than national rules limiting pollution from cars. The state has separately stipulated that only zero-emission cars will be able to sold there by 2035.

Instead, his administration has ordered the national parks and hundreds of other monuments and museums supervised by the Department of the Interior to ensure that all of their signage reminds Americans of our “extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing.”

The rule prohibits healthcare providers and insurers from giving information about a legal abortion to state law enforcement authorities who are seeking to punish someone in connection with that abortion.

It seemed inevitable that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams would hold state Attorney General James Uthmeier in contempt of court after he violated her order to stop enforcing a new law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to enter Florida.

The issue is so thorny that the Supreme Court has now weighed in. A June 18 decision allows work to move forward on a privately operated facility, to be located in Texas, that would store nuclear waste on an interim basis. The state of Texas fought the facility on the grounds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licensed the facility, did not have the authority to issue such a license. Rather than explicitly confirming the NRC’s ability to license the facility, the court found that Texas and landowners included in the complaint did not have the legal authority to challenge the license.

In a statement sent to local outlet KGW, Ice alleged that Sotelo “first entered the United States illegally in 2006” and has a “criminal conviction for DUI in Newberg, Oregon”. Sotelo’s family says that he came to the United States in the early 1990s. The Yamhill county district attorney’s office told local outlets that they had found no evidence of DUI charges.

As protests broke out across American cities on Wednesday, veterans in cities such as Portland, Oregon and San Antonio, Texas have joined a growing chorus of national anger about the prospect of another Middle Eastern war and called on Democratic leaders to act swiftly to invoke the War Powers Act.

He gave the official green light to the deal in an executive order on Friday.

The data turned over to Homeland Security included information about residents of California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C. The federal departments haven’t announced whether they have located and detained any undocumented immigrants based on that Medicaid data.

The protests will be held on the fifth anniversary of the death of Rep. John Lewis, who was the last surviving member of the Big Six, which helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.

For any lawyer, this is a professional death sentence. But the court’s decision is not only a devastating blow to Eastman but also to the Trumpist myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

The U.S. military recently announced that four executives from some of the top tech companies in Silicon Valley have joined the Army Reserve as direct-commissioned officers. The move is part of a push to speed up the adoption of technology in the military, but as the news outlet Task & Purpose points out, it’s pretty unusual.

The NAACP has welcomed both Democratic and Republican presidents to address the convention over the years. Presidents have historically used their remarks to build stronger ties with the Black community.

Those challenges were also evident in other data showing permits for future construction of single-family housing dropped to a two-year low in May as builders grappled with higher costs from duties on materials, including lumber, steel and aluminum.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management wrote on Facebook Sunday that it is “actively coordinating efforts to assist Americans seeking evacuation from the hostile situation in Israel.”

A Tennessee state law banning gender-affirming care for minors can stand, the US supreme court has ruled, a devastating loss for trans rights supporters in a case that could set a precedent for dozens of other lawsuits involving the rights of transgender children.

Nevada, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts:

Ice agents arrested the New York City comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander at a federal building in Manhattan. He had spent the morning there observing immigration hearings and told an Associated Press reporter he had intended to accompany some immigrants out of the building. Footage of the arrest shows an agent telling Lander: 'You're obstructing'. Lander replies: 'You don't have the authority to arrest US citizens asking for a judicial warrant' as he was led into a lift

The groups noted that after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, California approved Senate Bill 98, which stipulated press rights amid protests.

Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, tells 11Alive that Chance, a baby boy, was born prematurely last week by emergency cesarean section. The infant weighs about 1 pound 13 ounces and is in the NICU.

The scientist responsible for overseeing the CDC team that collects data on Covid and RSV hospitalizations resigned on Monday.

The lies ignore overwhelming evidence of Boelter’s actual politics: his roommate David Carlson told reporters Boelter voted for Trump and “was a strong supporter”. Other longtime friends told local media Boelter was right-leaning. While Minnesota voters don’t list party affiliation, he was registered as a Republican in Oklahoma in 2004.

A secretive group inside the FDA gave the global manufacturer a special pass to continue shipping more than a dozen drugs to the United States even though they were made at the same substandard factory that the agency had officially sanctioned. Pills and injectable medications that otherwise would have been banned went to unsuspecting patients across the country, including those with cancer and epilepsy.

CNN confirmed that Boelter works for Praetorian Guard Security where he serves as director of security patrols and has received training from U.S. military personnel.

One of the places that Jeff Bezos lives is a man-made island off the coast of Florida called Indian Creek Village. The island is predominantly populated by other billionaires and is colloquially known as the “Billionaire Bunker.” In fact, if you’re not a billionaire, it’s quite difficult to get in. The bridge from the mainland to the island is closed to the public and protected by armed guards and a sophisticated security system. However, if the island is almost entirely cut off from the rest of humanity, the island’s inhabitants still seem intent on sharing one thing with members of the outside world: their piss and shit.

President Donald Trump on Sunday directed federal immigration officials to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities, a move that comes after large protests erupted in Los Angeles and other major cities against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The motives of the attack are still unknown. According to Boelter's roommate and friend, David Carlson, he was a "strong supporter" of President Donald Trump. Videos are making their rounds of Boelter preaching about sexuality in Central Africa. Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Minnesota declined to share Boelter's voter data in the presidential primary, citing privacy concerns.

Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.

What Happened: A monitor appointed by a federal court has found that a New York City Police Department unit has been unjustly stopping and searching New Yorkers, almost all of them Black and Hispanic men. The report on the NYPD’s Community Response Team echoes a recent ProPublica investigation that found the unit, championed by Mayor Eric Adams, has been ridden with abuses.