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Predict who the next pope will be at your peril.An old Italian saying warns against putting faith, or money, in any presumed front-runner ahead of the conclave, the closed-door gathering of cardinals that picks the pontiff. It cautions: "He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal".But here are some cardinals who are being talked about as "papabili" to succeed Pope Francis, whose death at the age of 88 was announced by the Vatican on Monday...
Pope Francis’ famous exhortation to Catholic youth just months after being elected the 266th pope of the Catholic Church in March 2013 was “Hagan lio!” — “make a mess!” Twelve years later, upon his death Easter Monday morning at age 88, it’s fair to say that Francis took his own advice, making a mess of his pontificate and leaving the Catholic Church in a state of confusion and disarray.When he ascended the throne of Saint Peter as the first Jesuit pope and first pontiff to hail from...
President Trump has thrown his support behind a Long Island school district’s fight to keep its mascot after New York’s State Education Board banned the use of Native American-inspired names and logos.“I agree with the people in Massapequa, Long Island, who are fighting furiously to keep the Massapequa Chiefs logo on their Teams and School,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday. “Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an...
A showdown in federal court in Denver could help shape the future legal landscape surrounding deportations nationwide.A high-stakes hearing concluded Monday morning in a case filed by immigrants' rights groups against the Trump administration. Attorneys for the administration argued that people facing deportation should only be allotted 24 hours' notice to be able to fight their deportation order in court, but attorneys for the ACLU and Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network argued...
Some 5 million Americans with defaulted student loan payments will have their loans sent for collections on May 5, the Department of Education announced on Monday.Next month, for the first time since student loan payments were paused due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Education Department will collect the debts from borrowers who had defaulted -- which means they hadn’t paid their debts for around nine months or 270 days -- before the pandemic.The announcement comes as...
Just past the infamous Heartbreak Hill, a family full of avid marathoners remarked that there’s nothing like running Boston.“It’s the hardest, but it’s the best,” said Bonnie Perchard, whose husband...
Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after it pulled over $2 billion in federal funding to the Ivy League institution over accusations the school is not doing enough to target antisemitism.“The Government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security...
Harvard University announced Monday that it is suing the Trump administration in federal court, seeking to block a freeze on more than $2.2 billion in research grants.The move follows Harvard's refusal to comply with a series of sweeping demands from the administration, which included limiting campus activism, altering admissions policies, and restructuring university governance. According to Harvard, the freeze came just hours after the university said it would not acquiesce to the...
Harvard University is suing President Donald Trump's administration for threatening to withhold federal funding if the school did not comply with its list of demands.The lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts federal court, asks a judge to block the funding freeze from going into effect, arguing the move is "unlawful and beyond the government's authority."In it, lawyers for the university argue that the administration is unlawfully using billions of dollars in federal funding as "leverage to...
Thousands protest the Trump administration's federal funding cuts during the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington, DC, March 7, 2025. Dominic Gwinn/ZUMA
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Lisa Fazio expected her National Science Foundation grant to be cancelled. The associate professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University had watched, with apprehension, the GOP targeting disinformation in a series of legislative attacks.
She only grew more certain when, on April 18, the National Science Foundation (NSF) put out a statement on how grants would henceforth be evaluated for funding. In addition to limiting the inclusion of underrepresented groups, the statement cited Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” to cut funding for disinformation research:
“NSF will not support research with the goal of combating “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation” that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advances a preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”
Steven Hotze delivers a speech against same-sex marriage in front of the Supreme Court in 2015.Cliff Owen/AP
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For over a decade, Americans with private health insurance have enjoyed free access to dozens of types of preventive health care: cholesterol medication, prenatal care, and many types of cancer screenings, as well as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the “miracle drug” that prevents HIV infection. But on Monday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could gut the part of the Affordable Care Act that requires insurers to cover these services at zero cost to patients.
Kennedy v. Braidwood Management is at least the eighth time the Supreme Court has weighed in on a major element of the ACA since the health law was passed during the Obama administration in 2010. The lawsuit—filed by a group of Christian businesses and individuals who object to PrEP on religious grounds and Obamacare on ideological ones—takes aim at the US Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of independent, volunteer experts who rate the effectiveness of different types of preventive care. The ACA requires insurers to fully cover services rated “A” or “B” by the task force.
Currently, members of the task force are appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. But the case being heard by the Supreme Court argues that the Constitution requires officials who wield that level of power to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The planned budget cuts follow Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s move to dismantle the Administration for Community Living.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Zuma
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On Wednesday, a leaked draft Health and Human Services budget document revealed, among other sweeping cuts to health- and disability-related services, that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department plans to defund protection and advocacy services for people with developmental disabilities—including autistic people, about whom Kennedy also spreads harmful disinformation. The budget document is a proposal, pending official release and eventually congressional approval; it’s also unclear whether suggested cuts originate with Kennedy’s HHS or Project 2025 architect Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget.
Federal funding for nongovernmental organizations to provide legal and advocacy services to people with developmental disabilities started in 1978 with the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. There are now 57 protection and advocacy agencies—one in every state, every territory, and in Washington, DC—that work to enforce the rights of people with developmental disabilities, those with mental health conditions, and other disabilities. The agencies, known as P&As, are overseen by HHS’s Administration for Community Living—which is being dismantled.
“What they’ve outlined here is eliminating almost all of the disability infrastructure in this country providing for services, supports, [and] research across the board to disabled people,” said Kate Caldwell, director of research and policy at Northwestern University’s Center for Racial and Disability Justice. Protection and advocacy agencies, Caldwell explains, are granted what’s called “access authority,” powers that allow them to independently investigate reports of abuse in facilities and community settings.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt quickly denied a report that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacements for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
A blimp depicting President Trump as a giant angry orange baby wearing a diaper is raised over Parliament Square in London in July 2018.Claire Doherty/Sipa USA via AP Images
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On Monday, the New York Times reported that the Trump Administration is mulling a suite of initiatives aimed at encouraging Americans to have more babies. Some of the suggestions for these programs came from pronatalists, a loose network of activists who believe that the humanity is basically doomed unless people have more kids. A few weeks back, I hung out with some of them in Austin near their conference, which is called, naturally, NatalCon. To say that most of the conference goers leaned right would be an understatement; some of the topics under discussion were the ethics of gene-editing embryos to endow them with desired traits, how having more babies could save “the West,” and why most women should forego careers to be mothers.
Some of the pronatalist proposals that the White House is said to be considering include are practical in nature: issuing a baby bonus of $5,000, reserving 30 percent of Fullbright Scholarships for applicants who are parents or are at least married, and offering classes to women to help them identify the most fertile times in their menstrual cycle.
Other proposals, meanwhile, seem aimed at changing cultural attitudes toward childbearing. A prime example of this is the idea of bestowing a special medal on mothers of six or more children. This suggestion came from Malcolm and Simone Collins, a Pennsylvania couple who seem to have appointed themselves heads of the pronatalist movement and were the belles of the ball at NatalCon. The medal was part of a collection of draft executive orders on pronatalism that the Collinses recently sent to the Trump administration.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference in Miami on May 9, 2023. Rebecca Blackwell/AP
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On February 13, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that would allow state law enforcement to arrest and prosecute undocumented immigrants for being in the state without legal status. It was quickly paused. On April 4, United States District Judge Kathleen M. Williams temporarily blocked the law from being enforced, saying that enforcing immigration is strictly the work of the federal government.
But law enforcement from at least one agency, the Florida Highway Patrol, continued to make arrests under the law, according to local reporting and a Mother Jones analysis. The arrests were in clear violation of Williams’ order.
At a court hearing on Friday, attorneys representing immigrant advocacy groups told Williams, the federal judge, that they know of at least 15 such arrests, the Miami Herald reported. Williams said she was “astounded” that the arrests continued in spite of her order. “When I issued the temporary restraining order, it never occurred to me that police officers would not be bound by it,” Williams said at the hearing. “It never occurred to me that the state attorneys would not give direction to law enforcement so that we would not have these unfortunate arrests.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a meeting with El Salvador's Minister of National Defense Rene Merino Monroy at the Pentagon, last Wednesday.Nathan Howard/AP
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On Sunday evening, The New York Times published details of another potentially damning security scandal involving the chat app Signal and discussions of “detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15″—this time centered on a group chat created by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Citing four people with knowledge of the group chat, the report describes strikingly similar details to those revealed last month by The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who earlier disclosed that he had been inadvertently added to a different Signal group chat discussing the same Yemen war plans.
According to the Times, Hegseth shared information that “included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis” in a “chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.” The Times noted that Hegseth’s brother, Phil, holds a job at the Pentagon, as does his lawyer, Tim Parlatore. His wife, Jennifer, has recently become notable for accompanying her husband to high-profile meetings abroad.
Donald Trump speaks at a Presidential Inauguration event. Evan Vucci/AP
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Donald Trump’s inaugural committee raised almost $250 million, much of it from donors who are seeking—and in many cases have already received—valuable favors from the administration of the famously transactional president.
The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed the committee’s filing ahead of a Sunday deadline, reported that the funding haul far exceeded what the committee needed for the January 20 event, leaving millions of dollars (it’s not clear exactly how much) in a fund Trump can use for other purposes. His aides have said the surplus will help fund Trump’s planned library and charities aligned with the president.
Donations to the inauguration by tech giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta—apparently eager to display fealty to Trump—have previously drawn criticism, but the new filing reveals that a far larger group of companies and rich Americans also kicked in.
Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon in 2018.Don Emmert/Getty
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Miles Guo, an exiled Chinese billionaire best known for his ties to Steve Bannon, is in a Brooklyn jail awaiting sentencing following his conviction for orchestrating a massive fraud scheme. But Guo’s years of using his wealth to forge ties with people close to President Donald Trump appear to be bearing fruit.
As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer reported yesterday, far-right activist Gavin Wax just announced he is taking a job as chief of staff to Federal Communications Commissioner Nathan Simington. Wax would be one of several Trump advisers and administration aides who have previously worked for or been paid by Guo or his allies.
Others include top Trump aide Peter Navarro, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and senior Justice Department official Emil Bove. Bannon—whom Guo paid millions between 2017 and 2020 as an adviser—and former campaign aide Jason Miller, who ran Gettr, a social media company that Guo appears to have controlled, hold no official White House roles, but remain Trump advisers.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.Chris Kleponis/CNP via ZUMA
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This story was originally published on the substack Public Domain to which you can subscribe here.
At an all-hands meeting of Interior Department employees on April 9, Secretary Doug Burgum stressed that managing and protecting federal public lands “must be held in balance.”
“It says in the mission statement the job of Interior is to ‘manage and protect,’” he said. “It doesn’t just say ‘protect,’ it says ‘manage and protect.’”
A protester in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on Saturday. Demonstrators also gathered in other major cities across the country.Aashish Kiphayet/Sipa/AP
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This weekend, national protests broke out once again to demand an end to creeping authoritarianism and to defend the rule of law—sparked by the chaotic opening months of the Trump administration, defined by the flouting of judicial authority, executive overreach, and a subservient Congress. You can find a wrap-up of those protests, organized under the banner “50501”—meaning “50 protests, 50 states, 1 day”—here.
Over on Bluesky, we asked readers to share their own images from wherever they showed up, and we were flooded with responses, from tiny towns and a highway overpass, to sprawling cities—all forming a vivid, grassroots tapestry of resistance.
Readers sent photos and videos from Clarksburg, West Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Flagstaff, Arizona; Hartford, Connecticut; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Indiana; Las Vegas, Nevada; Lisle and Macomb, Illinois; Livonia, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Monterey, Paso Robles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Thousand Oaks, California; New York City, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; Raleigh, North Carolina; Rochester, New York; Roswell, New Mexico; St. Paul, Minnesota; Suffolk, Virginia; and more.
President Trump’s escalating tariff battle with China is rattling the global economy and raising questions about how the standoff will end. Trump this week announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs against dozens of countries, but he bumped up import taxes on China to a staggering 145 percent total. China hit back by upping its own tariffs to 125 percent on Friday, raising the stakes as the hikes roil global markets. Trump has insisted...
The Trump administration has ordered the National Institutes of Health to study the physical and mental health effects of undergoing gender transition, according to an internal NIH memo obtained by NPR.The directive was shared with NPR by two current NIH staffers who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. It is from acting NIH Director Mark Memoli, and says the NIH must study the impact of "social transition and/or chemical and surgical mutilation" among children who...
The Pentagon fired the commander at the U.S. Space Force base in Greenland after she distanced herself from Vice President JD Vance, who recently visited the headquarters. After the vice president’s visit, Col. Susannah Meyers emailed base personnel on March 31, writing, "I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base."...
Less than a day after the Supreme Court said the Trump administration had to “facilitate” the return of a man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, the case appeared headed for even murkier waters.During a tense hearing before US District Judge Paula Xinis on Friday afternoon, Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign repeatedly stonewalled the judge as she sought to nail down details about the steps the administration is taking to secure the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, at one point...
A federal judge on Friday, April 11, sided with the Trump administration in allowing immigration agents to conduct enforcement operations at houses of worship despite a lawsuit filed by religious groups over the new policy.U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington refused to grant a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs, more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans.She found that only a handful of immigration enforcement actions have...
Police in Kansas continue to search for the man who tore off the tip of a person’s finger with his teeth before getting away.Police said it started when that suspect stole a bottle of alcohol from a bar near 7th and Massachusetts Street in Lawrence. The suspect allegedly stole Fireball from Logie’s on Mass Street, then took off running down Mass St., where he randomly attacked a man and bit off the tip of his pinky finger.“That’s crazy,” Ethan Dorning said...
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the U.S. as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana found Friday during a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.The government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Immigration Judge Jamee E....
A US judge has ruled the Trump administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate detained last month over his role in pro-Palestinian protests.Mr Khalil, a permanent legal US resident, has not been charged with a crime. In a letter written from the facility, he has said his "arrest was a direct consequence" of speaking out for Palestinian rights.The government has cited a Cold War-era immigration law, declaring that his presence in the US was adverse to...
A U.S. immigration judge in Louisiana ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration can move forward with deportation proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil.The Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist’s case has become a flashpoint in the national debate over student protests and immigration policy. Judge James Comans at the LaSalle Immigration Court ruled that Khalil is removable under U.S. immigration law.Comans cited a recent letter ...
On April 2nd, Jewish students at Columbia University chained themselves to the gates of the university to demand Khalil's release.Michael Nigro/Pacific Press via ZUMA Press Wire
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A Louisiana immigration judge ruled Friday that recent Columbia graduate and Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported—even though Khalil has a green card, is a lawful permanent resident, and has not been charged with any crimes.
The judge gave Khalil’s attorneys until April 23 to ask for a stay of the deportation. There is a separate case in federal court in New Jersey still ongoing over whether Khalil’s arrest on March 8th violated his First Amendment rights.
The rationale for deporting Khalil is obscure. Secretary of State Marco Rubio submitted a two-page letter arguing, essentially, that Khalil is deportable on the basis of ideas: his “past, current, or expected beliefs.” Rubio relied on a 1950s law that says the Secretary of State can determine whether a noncitizen’s presence in the US harms national security goals.
President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Washington.Pool via AP
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Democratic lawmakers are calling for federal agencies and state attorneys general to investigate whether President Donald Trump, members of his administration, or any of his associates manipulated markets or helped enrich allies in connection with Trump’s sudden reversal on tariff polices Wednesday.
Six top Democrats wrote to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins Friday, asking the agency to investigate “whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the president’s announcement.”
In varied missives over the last few days, Democrats—who for months have publicly struggled with how aggressively to combat Trump—have taken direct aim at the economic damage inflicted by the president’s erratic tariff policy. And they have zeroed in on seemingly suspicious trading activity that took place ahead of Trump’s about-face.
Yes. Current population forecasts indicate that states like New York and California, which tend to elect Democrats, may lose congressional seats following apportionment, a process that redistributes the country’s 435 congressional districts every 10 years. AllSides highlights content from Gigafact, a network of newsrooms that respond to online claims. View the full fact brief on Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
Another round of federal workers are bracing to be fired again after a pair of court orders this week.ZUMA
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On Wednesday, S.W., an award-winning probationary worker at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), spent the day crying in bed.
S.W., who is being identified by her initials due to fear of retaliation for speaking out, is one of more than 24,000 federal probationary employees, those who have been in their jobs for a year or two or less, who were fired en masse on Valentine’s Day as part of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s purge of federal workers. A month later, in mid-March, she and thousands of other probationary workers were reinstated following a court order. For S.W., who said she is five months pregnant and her family’s breadwinner, getting that news felt like a win. “I felt so happy, I was on top of the world.”
Her hope was dashed Wednesday, when an appeals court allowed the Trump administration to resume terminations of probationary workers. It was one of two court rulings this week that allowed the firings of federal probationary workers to proceed, along with a Tuesday decision from the Supreme Court in which a majority of the justices ruled that the nonprofit organizations fighting the firings lacked standing to sue over them.
Robin Rayne/Zuma
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President Trump’s overarching embrace of fossil fuels includes repealing a landmark Biden legislative achievement, the Inflation Reduction Act, which has helped support major investments in clean energy infrastructure.
While this will be the 55th time Republicans will have tried to roll back part or all of the $370 billion IRA, a Mother Jones analysis shows that most of the spending under the bill—and its associated jobs—went to areas represented by Republicans in Congress.
As the Biden White House explained, the 2022 law aimed to make sure the U.S. remained “the global leader in clean energy technology, manufacturing, and innovation.” That logic—and the jobs and tax credits spun off by the spending—conviced 18 Republican House members to sign a letter last summer asking their GOP colleagues not to go through with a “full repeal” of the bill, a move that was largely seen as an effort to appeal to voters ahead of the 2024 elections.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, at a Senate hearing. Michael Brochstein/ZUMA
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This story was originally published on the Substack Public Domain, to which you can subscribe here.
Kathleen Sgamma, a longtime oil and gas activist, withdrew her nomination to lead the federal Bureau of Land Management hours before her confirmation hearing Thursday.
The move comes two days after a watchdog group surfaced private comments in which Sgamma condemned President Donald Trump’s actions during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mother Jones illustration; Rebecca Noble/Getty(2); Randy Pench/The Sacramento Bee/Zuma
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President Donald Trump’s convulsive tariff policy, which all but reversed course Wednesday with the caveat that the same pain would return in 90 days, continues to scramble the world’s economic order. But against the upheaval of broken alliances and global supply chains, a small anxiety is emerging among Americans with wanderlust: how to travel with the world’s most toxic passport.
Because who wants to host visitors who, if electorally judged, voted for this tumult? Even the Brits seem over us. In some ways, the question is an extension of the long-held stereotype that American travelers can be obnoxious. That they are loud and generally indifferent to local cultures. But under Trump, the stereotype feels rife for explosion.
So ahead of summer travel, I wondered: Will an American accent get your ass kicked? Should I pack a bunch of Resistance era clothing? What should I know about unlawful detentions? I called Amy Tara Koch, a travel reporter and lecturer at Northwestern University, for some quick answers on how to think about global travel during these strange times.
Samples from a water treatment plant in Wilmette, Illinois, contained toxic PFAS chemicals at levels up to 600 times higher than the EPA's latest health advisory.Erin Hooley/TNS/ZUMA
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This story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
In 2021, James Kenney and his husband were at a big box store buying a piece of furniture when the sales associate asked if they’d like to add fabric protectant. Kenney, the cabinet secretary of New Mexico’s Environment Department, asked to see the product data sheet. Both he and his husband were shocked to see forever chemicals listed as ingredients in the protectant.
“I think about your normal, everyday New Mexican who is trying to get by, make their furniture last a little longer, and they think, ‘Oh, it’s safe, great!’ It’s not safe,” he says. “It just so happens that they tried to sell it to the environment secretary.”
Daniel McGregor-Huyer/ZUMA Press
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Elon Musk has already spent more money—$20 million and counting—to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court than any individual donor in the history of US judicial races.
His tactics go well beyond the usual campaign spending. First, he offered to pay voters $100 each for signing a petition from his America PAC opposing “activist judges.” Even the Musk and Trump-backed candidate, Brad Schimel, said he wouldn’t feel comfortable signing it. Then Musk said he’d awarded Scott Ainsworth, a mechanical engineer from Green Bay, $1 million for signing the petition.
“It’s clear what the intention is,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said. “He’s trying to bribe voters. He’s trying to buy an election. This is totally out of line. This should not be how American democracy works.”
Lev Radin/ZUMA Press Wire
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Robert F. Kennedy’s Jr. war on vaccines just landed another major blow as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services successfully forced one of the nation’s top vaccine officials out of his position.
Dr. Peter Marks, who was given the choice by HHS officials to either be fired or step down as the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, announced his resignation on Friday.
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks reportedly wrote in his letter of resignation. He added that leaving his position was a “weight lifted from me” as working in this environment “was spiraling deeper and deeper into danger.”
President Donald Trump has worked to advance his agenda at lightning speed, but courts have halted those efforts after an avalanche of challenges to his actions. North Carolina Republicans are eyeing a way to stop Democrats from adding to the onslaught.Democratic attorneys general have been one of the few forms of resistance to Trump’s various actions, spearheading many of the most prominent lawsuits against the executive branch. While Trump won North Carolina ...
Young Scooter, the Atlanta rapper signed to Future and Waka Flocka Flame, has reportedly died on the same day as his birthday. He was 39. A 39-year-old man died after injuring his leg on a fence as he fled from police responding to a 911 call at a home on William Nye Drive on Friday, March 28, the Atlanta Police Department stated in a press conference. The man was transported to Grady Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Friday that Denmark has “underinvested” in Greenland’s security and demanded that Denmark change its approach as President Donald Trump pushes to take over the Danish territory.The pointed remarks came as Vance visited U.S. troops on Pituffik Space Base on the mineral-rich, strategically critical island alongside his wife and other senior U.S. officials for a trip that was ultimately scaled back after an uproar among Greenlanders and...
US Vice-President JD Vance has accused Denmark of leaving Greenland vulnerable to alleged incursions by China and Russia, as he asked its people to "cut a deal" with the US.Speaking during a visit to the Arctic island, Vance minimised recent threats by US President Donald Trump to take over the island by force.
Vice President Vance told the people of Greenland that they would be better off being part of the United States rather than Denmark in remarks during a visit to a U.S. military base in the Arctic territory on Friday.President Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in acquiring the territory, sparking a sharp reaction from Greenland and Denmark.
Addressing American troops on his trip to Greenland on Friday, Vice President JD Vance accused Denmark of neglecting the small island’s people and infrastructure, highlighting the crucial role that the Arctic territory plays in international security.For months, President Donald Trump has vowed to take over Greenland to prevent it from falling into Russian or Chinese hands. The U.S. has taken interest in Greenland in part because of its mineral resources and the American military’s existing...
Slate illustration
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This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Once upon a time, not long ago, Elon Musk was worried sick about climate change. Stopping it became an overarching career mission, reflected in both his business decisions and everyday actions. He gave the electric vehicle industry a jolt after taking over Tesla Motors in 2004. He joined President Donald Trump’s first business advisory council in 2017, then resigned in protest when Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement. He directed Tesla to buy up $1 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2021 and accept the cryptocurrency in formal transactions, only to backtrack when he remembered that Bitcoin mining is, by design, a heavily energy-intensive process that requires masses of fossil fuel–powered computer servers to run at all times. It was such a notorious moment in the crypto world that one speaker led “FUCK ELON” chants during that year’s Bitcoin conference.
What a remarkable thing, then, for Musk to embrace Trump more closely than ever as the reelected president decorates his administration with oil-industry shills and with crypto insiders, whose energy-intensive mining rigs and data centers make them something of a natural complement to the fossil fuel industry’s expansionist goals.
The bullhorn-powered war of words between satanists and Catholics boiled over into brawling and a handful of arrests Friday during an extraordinary event at the Kansas Capitol that pushed boundaries of free speech and the separation of church and state.After about two hours of speeches, prayers and sign waving among hundreds of people mostly segregated by barricades staffed by law enforcement officers, Satanic Grotto president Michael Stewart, with supporters and reporters in tow, entering...
The organizer of a “black mass” that took place outside the Kansas state Capitol on Friday amid heavy Catholic protest was arrested shortly afterward in the Capitol building after punching a protester in the face. A video from local news outlet WIBW shows Michael Stewart raising his arms and chanting in the Capitol rotunda, surrounded by a number of protesters urging him to stop. A young man later identified as Marcus Schroeder attempted to snatch what appeared to be papers...
A physical altercation inside the Kansas Statehouse Friday ended with Capitol Police arresting Satanic church leader Michael Stewart, capping off a morning of inflammatory religious demonstration. Stewart punched a man, Marcus Jeremiah Jared Schroeder, who repeatedly attempted to rip a booklet out of his hands while he called out to Satan from the Capitol’s first-floor rotunda. Both men were taken into custody and booked into the Shawnee County Jail, records show.A physical altercation...
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are unable to effectively monitor more than 600,000 children who illegally crossed the southern border unaccompanied by a guardian since 2019, according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.The report said that hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children entered the country and were transferred from ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of...
Mother Jones illustration; Photos courtesy of attorneys for Momodou Taal and Rumeysa Ozturk; Bonnie Cash/Pool/CNP/Zuma
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On Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge in New York’s Northern District heard opening arguments in the case of Momodou Taal v. Trump. Neither party was present in the courtroom—in large part because Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has been trying to find Taal for days, reportedly staking out his home and entering his university’s campus.
Taal, a British-Gambian doctoral student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, sued the administration on February 15 to challenge Trump’s executive orders curtailing free speech and seeking to deport pro-Palestinian activists, which have been paired with a wave of attacks by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers—in some cases masked and hooded—on graduate and undergraduate students.
At 12:52 a.m. on Friday—within five days of Taal’s lawsuit—Taal’s lawyers received an email “inviting” their client to “surrender to ICE custody.” At 7:00 p.m. the following day, Trump’s lawyers filed a brief informing Taal that the State Department had already revoked his visa, without his knowledge, on March 14—the day before Taal filed his lawsuit. Days later, ICE agents arrived on Cornell’s campus attempting to find and seize him.
Nathan Howard/AP
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Amid intense outrage over the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts student who was ambushed and detained by plainclothes federal immigration officers this week, Marco Rubio appeared gratified.
“We revoked her visa, it’s an F-1 visa, I believe,” the secretary of State told reporters at a press conference in Guyana on Thursday when asked about the arrest. “We revoked it and I’ll tell you why.”
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student,” Rubio continued with increasing conviction, “and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa.”
The decision by RFK Jr.'s health department is only the latest Trump White House action to harm disabled people.Michael M. Santiago/Getty
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On Thursday, the federal Department of Health and Human Services moved, through a department-wide restructuring order, to eliminate the Administration for Community Living (ACL), a subsidiary established in 2012 to support disabled and aging people—part of a broader series of cuts that will see the firing of some 10,000 HHS staff. HHS’ press release on the restructuring claims that ACL’s responsibilities will be redesignated elsewhere within the department, which has yet to issue further details or clarify its plans. An unknown number of the administration’s workers will also be laid off.
Jill Jacobs, a Biden-era commissioner of ACL’s Administration on Disabilities, was shocked to hear the news. “It’s not something that’s been on anyone’s radar, not a conversation that anyone’s been having,” said Jacobs, who is now the executive director of the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities.
“Where exactly are they going to go? Who is going to implement [it]? Is this the first step in cutting further programs?”
The Greenlandic trawler the BINGO III fishes for shrimp and prawns off Disko Island. Gordon Leggett/Wikimedia Commons
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This story was originally published on the author’s substack, Field Notes with Alexander C Kaufman, to which you can subscribe here.
Last week, Greenlanders trudged through snow and ice to cast ballots in their most closely watched parliamentary elections in modern history—possibly ever.
Just two months earlier, Donald Trump had returned to power, vowing to achieve what American presidents had tried and failed to do before: bring the world’s largest island under Washington’s direct control. Since World War II, the United States has boasted a large security presence in the autonomous Arctic territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. During a speech before Congress a week before the March 11 election, Trump repeated his offer for Greenlanders to join the United States but vowed to take the island “one way or the other.”
RFK Jr. at the California Libertarian Party Convention in 2024. Brian Cahn/Zuma
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s remaking of the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) entered a new phase on Thursday, when officials announced that the department’s workforce would shrink by another 10,000 staff to comply with President Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s orders to drastically shrink the federal government.
HHS announced that the “dramatic restructuring” of the agency will include cuts to offices including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Combined with HHS’s other efforts to reduce its workforce—the buyout offers it recently made to employees and its January “fork in the road email” that offered federal workers eight months’ pay to resign—the department’s overall workforce will go from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees, a reduction of nearly 25 percent. In a six-minute video posted to X detailing the plans, Kennedy acknowledged that the cuts will bring about “a painful period for HHS.”
The agency offered some details on the specific offices that will see cuts, including the NIH, which will lose about 1,200 employees; the FDA, which will lose about 3,500 employees, which HHS claims “will not affect drug, medical device, or food reviewers, nor will it impact inspectors”; the CMS, which will lose about 300 employees, which the agency says “will not impact Medicare and Medicaid services”; and the CDC, which will lose about 2,400.
We have rites that we take for granted. Here is an example of what is happening all across the nation now that Trump is deporting 20 million immigrants. Just for some perspective, numbers blown out of proportion shows only 14 million illegal immigrants. Where do the other 6 come from? People that are legally here. Mahmoud Khalil arrest video Video ...
Trump had an extremely unusual strategy during his (nearly 2 year) campaign for the 2024 presidential election. Amongst the chaos and what I remember as almost a complete saturation within our news with what Trump was saying and what was being done in response. However I have come up with something like campaign promises. I think it wou...
Summary This component and module combination will allow a site administrator to grant users the ability to store files on the server. These files can be kept private, they can be made public, or they can be password protected with the user being able to chose a passwords and share it to his friends along with a friendly URL. This is the first of m...
Trump's 2024 Campaign Promises
Summary:
Here I have tallied all the Trump (Shit-Show 2.0*) campaign promises. No particular order. Let's start with his own words and see where they end up shall we?
The recent resignations at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the appointment of Kash Patel as FBI Director raise concerns about a potential departure from a law-based government.
Based on the search results, there's been significant news regarding changes in FBI leadership. Here's a summary of what I found:
Significant Leadership Changes:There are reports of senior FBI officials being told to resign, retire, or face termination. These officials include those at the executive assistant director level and heads of FBI field offices.
These changes appear to be related to a shift in administration and associated policy changes.
Specifically there is reporting of the ousting of FBI executives, and internal reviews of personnel associated with the Jan. 6th investigations.
Key Points:The moves affect high-ranking officials, including those overseeing critical divisions like national security, cyber, and criminal investigations.
There are reports of field office leaders, such as those in Miami and Las Vegas, also receiving notice.
Former FBI director Christopher Wray has resigned.
There is reporting of agents who participated in investigations into former president Trump, taking steps to retire or leave the agency.
It's important to note that the situation is dynamic, and the full extent of the changes may continue to unfold.
Based on the information I found, there have been several notable resignations within the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently, largely stemming from a controversy surrounding the case of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Here's a breakdown:
Danielle Sassoon:
The acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, resigned after being directed to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.
DOJ Public Integrity Division:
Following the controversy, several high-ranking officials within the DOJ's public integrity section also resigned. This includes:
The acting chief of the division.
Three deputy chiefs.
A deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division who oversaw the section.
Kevin Driscoll and John Keller:
The acting heads of the Justice Department’s criminal and public integrity divisions, Kevin Driscoll and his deputy, John Keller, also recently resigned.
Denise Cheung:
A top supervisor in the federal prosecutors' office in Washington, Denise Cheung, resigned following a dispute with her boss over a directive to scrutinize a government contract.
Key takeaways:
These resignations highlight a significant internal conflict within the DOJ regarding the handling of the Eric Adams case.
The departures indicate a strong disagreement among DOJ officials regarding the decisions made by the department's leadership.
There are also reports of changes happening due to the change in presidential administrations.
It's important to keep in mind that these situations can evolve, and further developments may occur.
Professional Experience
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Owner / Development Manager
SV-Technical.com — San Jose, CA
2010 - Present
Leading the development and management of technical projects, ensuring quality and efficiency in delivery.
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Development Manager
Red Wagon Web — San Jose, CA
2007 - 2010
Oversaw a team of developers, coordinating project timelines and technical requirements for web applications.
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Lead Developer
Proline Gamers Portal — San Jose, CA
2004 - 2006
Developed and maintained a robust gaming portal, enhancing user experience and system performance.
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Web Designer and Developer
Clickaticket.com — Riverside, CA
2005 - 2006
Created engaging web designs and implemented front-end functionalities for ticketing services.
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Web and Systems Administrator
JDS Uniphase (JDSU) — San Jose, CA
1999 - 2002
Managed web servers and systems, ensuring high availability and performance of corporate applications.
Core Competencies
- Project Management: Proven track record of leading projects from concept to completion.
- Web Development: Expertise in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and various web technologies.
- Team Leadership: Skilled in managing and mentoring teams to achieve project goals.
- Systems Administration: Strong background in server management and system optimization.
- UI/UX Design: Experience in creating user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing web interfaces.
- Problem Solving: Excellent analytical skills with a focus on delivering effective solutions.