Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would overhaul a preventive medicine team that risks making screenings more difficult.

“[The US Preventive Services Task Force] has been lackadaisical and negligent for 20 years,” Kennedy told members of the House Ways and Means Committee. “We’re going to have, for the first time, transparency.” 

As my colleagues Anna Merlan, Julia Métraux, and Kiera Butler have reported, Kennedy’s transformation of the HHS has been extensive and relies on rejectingdecades of scientific, evidence-based research on health. 

Kennedy said on Thursday he would appoint new members with “a clear mission” but did not elaborate on whether he would remove any current members. Five of the 16 panel members’ terms expired last December, but Kennedy has not filled those roles. 

If the new task force stops recommendations on a certain preventive drug or screening, insurance companies would no longer be required to cover it under the Affordable Care Act, effectively taking millions of Americans off vital health interventions. 

This may be the clearest sign that Kennedy will continue to dismantle the health panel. In July 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that the health secretary planned to dismiss all 16 members because they were too “woke.” Due to the HHS’ cancellations, the panel has not met in a year; it usually meets three times annually. The members also did not submit their congressionally-mandated report for 2025. 

According to Politico, the task force is working on recommendations related to autism screening in children, medication to reduce the risks of breast cancer, and counseling on early allergen introduction to prevent food allergies in infants. Kennedy has previously voiced enthusiasm for focusing on autism and food allergies in children.

About a quarter of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. And researchers at the nonprofit Climate Central say that if you’re feeling snifflier than normal this spring, you aren’t alone—and climate change and pollution might be behind your personal postnasal drip. 

In 173 of the 198 cities Climate Central studied, the freeze-free growing season (that is, the time of year when plants are capable of, among other things, producing pollen) lengthened by an average of 21 days since 1970. In some places, like Nashville, the freeze-free growing season is now a full month longer than it used to be, and one 2022 study suggests that by the end of the century, it’ll be two months longer than it is now. And as climate change causes more-frequent extreme weather events, like hurricanes, that also means more mold and more respiratory distress. 

On top of all that, thanks to changes in temperature and rainfall, some plant species, like ragweed, are moving north, and exposing people to new allergens—which means that some of us who haven’t experienced allergies before might experience symptoms for the first time this year.  

“That means more patients are reacting to more plant species, for longer,” immunologist Rebecca Saff recently wrote in Harvard’s Climate Brief. “Even people with historically mild seasonal allergies are noticing sharper symptom peaks, and medications that once kept things under control are not working as well as they once did.” 

So, what can the watery-eyed, scratchy-throated masses do? Saff suggests starting to take your allergy medications earlier in the year than you normally would, since your spring and fall symptomatic periods might not be so predictable anymore. She also recommends using the National Allergy Bureau’s dashboard to get accurate data on allergen levels in your area. Stock up on that Zyrtec.

On January 13, Aliya Rahman was on her way to a doctor’s appointment when ICE agents smashed the glass out of her car windows at a Minneapolis intersection, pulled her out of her car, hauled her down the street by her arms and legs, and detained her. Rahman—a disabled Bangladeshi-American woman with a traumatic brain injury and autism—blacked out from her injuries on the floor of the Whipple detention center. When she woke up in the emergency room, she learned that she was being treated for “injuries consistent with assault,” according to her lawyers.

Now, Rahman plans to ensure her ordeal comes at a cost to the agency that harmed her. On April 16th, Rahman’s legal team filed a federal tort claim against ICE, seeking monetary restitution for their client’s treatment at the agency’s hands. It’s a tactic more and more people are using to seek accountability for mistreatment and violence done by federal agents. 

“I was never asked for ID, never told I was under arrest, never read my rights, and never charged with a crime,” Rahman said. Since her detention, ICE’s official X account has posted video footage of the moments before her arrest, implying that she has broken the law: “18 U.S.C. § 111 criminalizes impeding or interfering with federal officers.”

It’s a “blatant misinformation campaign,” Rahman’s lawyer, Jessica Gingold, told Mother Jones, adding that because of these posts, Rahman has received threats and harassment online. Her client, she said, was “going about her daily life, trying to go to the doctor, and ended up unconscious on the floor in a detention center.” 

Under US law, it is near-impossible for a person to file a civil rights lawsuit against an individual federal agent, the way someone who’s been hurt by a local or state police officer could. But an increasing number of people hurt by ICE and DHS agents are filing tort claims—demanding monetary compensation for what has been done to them—through a byzantine process governed by the Federal Tort Claims Act. 

“Under the Federal Tort Claims Act we can file a claim for monetary damages. That’s what we can ask for,” Gingold, of the MacArthur Justice Center, told Mother Jones. “We can’t ask for systems change under the FTCA. But we do feel strongly that [if] more people do this, demand their due for the harm that’s been wreaked over this country…that itself could make systems change happen, right?” 

An ICE agent told the Washington Post that the agency received 400 tort claims in fiscal year 2025. Among the claimants: an undocumented immigrant in Chicago seeking $1 million in damages after he said he was body-slammed and put in a chokehold by a DHS agent, a 79-year-old US citizen in California who is seeking $50 million after federal agents shoved him to the ground and broke his ribs, and the wife of a farmworker who died of injuries sustained during an ICE raid is seeking $47 million.

And Rahman, now, is likely to be one of the most public faces of this tactic: since her arrest, she’s continued to speak up for immigration reform, attended the State of the Union as Ilhan Omar’s guest—and she’s been arrested a second time, for standing up during the State of the Union. (She was released without charge.) 

“Our nation lacks rules and accountability around what a person claiming to be law enforcement can do to another human being, and I am not afraid to keep working on this problem even after ICE is gone,” Rahman said in February.

But though ICE and DHS are facing billions of dollars in potential tort claims, the process is likely to be slow. Filing a tort claim, Gingold said, is relatively simple: you start by filling out a form. “What’s required is not much: you just need to be able to say, this is the harm that happened.” Then, the agency has six months to agree to pay, or contest your claim. Often, though, they ignore tort claims altogether, Gingold said. If that six-month clock runs out, then a person harmed by an ICE agent would have the opportunity to take the agency to court. 

“If the agency gets enough of these and understands that treating people inhumanely, ignoring disability, targeting people for their race is costly, that can lead to changes in how they function,” Gingold said. 

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson referred to Rahman as an “agitator” who impeded law enforcement operations “Any claim she was denied medical care is FALSE and just another smear leading to a 1,300% increase in assaults and 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Reporter Amanda Moore was on the ground and captured video footage of officers forcefully removing Rahman from her vehicle during the arrest.

Update, April 16: This article has been updated to include comment from the Department of Homeland Security.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth quoted a violent and fictional Bible passage nearly word-for-word from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in his Wednesday night worship service at the Pentagon.

In the film, Samuel L. Jackson’s hitman character Jules Winnfield recites the Bible passage just before he and his partner shoot and kill their boss’ unarmed business partner. Jackson’s monologue frames Winnfield’s violence as a “righteous” vengeance. 

Hegseth told attendees that the prayer was recited by one of the teams involved in the combat search and rescue mission to save the two Air Force crew members shot down in Iran earlier this month, an uncited borrowing from the film first covered Wednesday by the newsletter A Public Witness.

“They call it CSAR 25:17,” Hegseth said, where CSAR stands for “Combat Search and Rescue”. The Biblical citation 25:17 is associated with Ezekiel 25:17, the Bible passage the Pulp Fiction monologue is based on. 

Here’s what Hegseth recited in full on Wednesday:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

The passage appears to be a thinly veiled threat of continued violence against Iran, especially as Vance told the audience how “the Lord’s word” will influence future military decisions, such as the US blockade on Iranian ports in retaliation to Iran refusing to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

As my colleague Kiera Butler highlighted when President Donald Trump nominated Hegseth for secretary of defense in November 2024, Hegseth published a book in 2020, American Crusade, which considered the destruction of Muslim holy sites to reclaim them for Christianity. He also has tattoos that signify the Christian crusades. 

And as I wrote last month, throughout his time in office, Hegseth has explicitly incorporated religion into his work at the Pentagon, hosting monthly evangelical worship services and inviting clergy members from his Christian denomination to preach. 

In response to a request for comment, the Defense Department emailed a link to a post on X by its chief spokesperson Sean Parnell acknowledging that Hegseth was “obviously inspired” by Pulp Fiction.

Update, April 16: This article has been updated to include comment from the Department of Defense and to cite A Public Witness, the outlet that first noted Hegseth’s remarks.

On Wednesday, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner apologized for using the r-word in an article in the Maine Monitor, saying that he is “sorry that I said it” and “I am endeavoring to improve every single day.”

Platner used the r-word in the context of dismissing concerns that people had with his tattoo, a Totenkopf, a symbol that continues to be embraced by Neo-Nazis.

On Monday, I was the first reporter to highlight the problematic aspect of Platner using the r-word to dismiss concerns about the tattoo in the other article published over the weekend. As I highlighted, the term is very offensive to many disabled people, and just because President Donald Trump has an affinity for the term that doesn’t mean other politicians should as well. Platner also previously used the r-word on Reddit, along with making racist comments.

Considering how the Trump administration has targeted disabled people—including enacting brutal cuts to Medicaid, which will alter the services some disabled people receive—some people may argue that others are overreacting to Platner’s use of the r-word. However, having better standards than President Donald Trump has for himself is a good thing when trying to play a role in flipping the Senate to Democratic power.

I asked Platner’s campaign on Monday before publication about why Platner was still using the r-word, despite disabled people calling out the offensiveness of using the term for years. I have still not received a response.

In his apology at a press gaggle, Platner did not highlight what work he has done to engage with disabled Mainers or what work that he plans to do. He did, however, say that he continues “to try to be better.”

President Donald Trump shared what appears to be an AI-generated image of Jesus hugging him on social media on Wednesday morning, just days after he was widely condemned for sharing a picture depicting himself as a Christ-like figure. 

He wrote in the post: “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!  President DJT.” The image comes from an account on X named “Irish for Trump” with the handle @Dkelly4congress, in reference to a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for the US House in 2024. The account also appears to be associated with the dive bar Croke Park in Boston, Massachusetts.

Trump is posting fresh blasphemies this morning

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-15T12:37:21.279Z

Since posting his earlier image on Monday, which was part of his bizarre remarks against Pope Leo XIV over the US-Israeli war in Iran, Trump told reporters that he believed the post actually portrayed him “as a doctor” and “had to do with [the humanitarian nonprofit] Red Cross.” The post was deleted later on Monday following backlash, with many of his own supporters voicing criticisms.  

But Trump appears to have doubled down on Wednesday, and JD Vance has backed the president.

“He took [the Monday post] down because he recognized that a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor,” Vance told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday. “I think the president of the United States likes to mix it up on social media.”​

Vance also criticized the pope, saying in the same interview that the Vatican should stick to “matters of morality” and “what’s going on in the Catholic Church” and “let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” 

On Tuesday, Vance said the pope should “be careful” when talking about theology, asserting it was wrong for Leo to say Jesus “is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” 

Sure JD, the pope definitely doesn’t know about theology. 

As my colleague Kiera Butler wrote last week, the Trump administration’s war in Iran, as well as the absurd justifications of the military effort, is tearing apart his solid coalition of Catholic and evangelical Protestants. According to an Ipsos and Reuters survey released on Tuesday, only 55 percent of Republicans said they believed the war was worth the costs.

Despite his brashness, Donald Trump has built a habit of taking back some of his most obscene social media posts. 

On Monday, the president deleted a bizarre image of what appeared to be an AI-generated depiction of him as a Jesus-like figure following immediate criticism, many from his own right-wing supporters such as Fox News host Joey Jones and anti-trans political activist Riley Gaines. Trump had initially posted the picture on Sunday during his feud with Pope Leo XIV over the US-Israeli war in Iran. 

Trump just posted this of him as Jesus. Straight up heresy.

— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T02:09:09.328Z

Trump told reporters on Monday that he thought his post portrayed him “as a doctor” and “had to do with [the humanitarian nonprofit] Red Cross.” 

“Only the fake news could come up with that one,” he continued, in response to the idea that the image made him look like Jesus.

Much like many of his policies, Trump’s posts often have no actual substance. Let’s step back in time and revisit some of the president’s previous highlights:

Where Trump depicts former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a racist video (February 2026)

As Katie Herchenroder wrote for Mother Jones shortly after the Truth Social post was deleted the next day:

“Toward the end of an unrelated video alleging interference in the 2020 presidential election, a clip that is around 2 seconds long features the first Black president and his wife on the bodies of apes as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background. That clip comes from a longer video that a meme account posted in October.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wrote on X: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”

Trump refused to apologize, and the White House blamed a staff worker for “erroneously” posting it.

Where Trump referenced Nazi-era language in a video looking forward to a potential win in the 2024 election (May 2024)

About four seconds into a video promoting Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign asking “What happens after Donald Trump wins? What’s next for America?,” an imaginary news headline reads “Industrial strength significantly increased…driven by the creation of a unified reich.”

According to the Associated Press, the headline appeared to be text copied word-for-word from a Wikipedia entry on World War I at the time: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”

“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press statement. The video stayed up for about 15 hours.

Where Trump violated a gag order on his criminal hush money trial nine times (April 2024)

In a criminal case where Trump was ultimately found guilty for falsifying business records to hide payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels for silence over an alleged sexual encounter, a New York judge fined the president $9,000—$1,000 for each violation—over posts on his campaign website and Truth Social page that attacked potential jurors and witnesses on the morning of April 30, 2024. Trump was ordered to delete the posts by the afternoon—which he complied with.

Some of the targets of Trump’s attacks: expected witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, and condemning prospective jurors as “liberal activists.”

Where Trump threatened all of his enemies during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack (January 2021)

At 2:24pm ET on January 6, just after rioters breached the Capitol, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” Many of the rioters were demanding that Pence stop the certification of the election.

Other posts inciting violence and reiterating unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen were also deleted or removed following social media platforms Facebook and Twitter temporarily suspending Trump’s accounts.

In response to the bans, Trump launched Truth Social in 2022 so that he could continue posting through it.

Graham Platner could very well be the Democratic nominee running against Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for her long-held Senate seat.

Platner’s run has not been without controversy, to put it lightly. A tattoo that Platner had, a Totenkopf, was worn by Nazis and is still a symbol embraced by Neo-Nazis today. In an article published in the local publication Maine Monitor on Saturday, the Senate candidate explained his initial reaction:

Platner said he didn’t know what it was until it became an issue during this campaign. Even when someone working with his campaign told him there was a rumor going around that he had a white supremacist tattoo, he said he didn’t connect it to the skull and crossbones on his chest. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s the fucking most r-tarded shit I’ve ever heard in my life,’” he told me. “‘No, I don’t have a white supremacist tattoo,’ and I never thought about it again. And then it came up later on, and I was like, ‘God fucking damn it.’” (He had the tattoo covered in late October.)

Platner has made some attempts to reconcile with Maine Jewish communities, including hosting a Passover seder. But now, as healthcare data wonk Charles Gaba raised on Bluesky, why is Platner using the r-word, a slur that is greatly offensive to many disabled people, in 2026?

PLATNER IS LITERALLY STILL OPENLY USING THE "R" WORD IN CASUAL CONVERSATION. TODAY.

— Charles Gaba ✡️ (@charlesgaba.com) 2026-04-11T20:42:44.467Z

I asked the Platner campaign for comment, but they have not responded by the time of publication.

The Arc, which supports those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, explain, “If you constantly heard a core part of your identity used as shorthand for ‘stupid’ or ‘worthless,’ how would you feel? It chips away at dignity. It sends a message about who is valued and who isn’t.”

If it’s casually part of someone’s vocabulary, they might not get the harm. This also points to a lack of engagement with disabled people.

Considering how the Trump administration has targeted disabled people—including enacting brutal cuts to Medicaid, which will alter the services some disabled people receive—some people may argue that others are overreacting to Platner’s use of the r-word. However, having better standards than President Donald Trump has for himself is a good thing when trying to play a role in flipping the Senate to Democratic power.

As I’ve reported previously, Trump has a long history of making offensive remarks targeting disabled people. This includes casually using the r-word on the Howard Stern show, as well as calling Deaf actress Marlee Matlin the r-word behind her back when she competed on The Apprentice.

Trump’s use of the r-word has also been a dealbreaker for some Republicans. Back in November, Republican Indiana State Senator Michael Bohacek said that he would not vote for redistricting in the Republican state after Trump used the r-word to refer to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. “I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter,” Bohacek wrote on Facebook, “I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.” Redistricting efforts in Indiana, after Bohacek’s remarks, proceeded to fail.

This is not the first time that Platner has been criticized for using the r-word. As reported by CNN, Platner used the r-word several times in Reddit posts in 2021. After his Reddit history leaked, he distanced himself from his posts, saying that his views have changed and came from a troubled place after serving in the military.

“I didn’t feel connected. I didn’t feel like I understood my place in the world, my place in our society,” Platner said, according to Maine Public, “And that of course resulted in a lot of feelings of alienation and loneliness. And that’s when all this happened.” 

None of this excuses why Platner is still using this slur in 2026. It also shows that the left have their own ableism problems to grapple with, not just Republicans.

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly making an AI clone of himself to provide feedback to his employees. 

According to a Sunday night report by the Financial Times, sources said that Zuckerberg’s tech giant Meta is training an AI character on the CEO’s image and voice, as well as mannerisms, tone, and thoughts on company strategy “so that employees might feel more connected to the founder through interactions with it.” 

The move is part of Meta’s push to catch up to competitors like Google and OpenAI in developing AI technology. According to the same Financial Times report, the company has been working on creating 3D AI avatars that users can converse with in real time, but has run into problems with scaling the technology as it requires massive amounts of computing power to seem real.

But those struggles haven’t stopped the company: if the Zuckerberg character works, influencers and creators could follow suit, according to FT. 

Putting aside the creepiness of Meta making an AI clone of its CEO so that it can watch over all of its employees, this sounds similar to the ill-fated metaverse. Zuckerberg’s multi-billion-dollar failure to create “the future of connection” via virtual reality playground tanked spectacularly. Meta promised an immersive VR world where users could socialize, work, and play through online avatars. Zuckerberg went all-in on the metaverse, even re-naming his company Facebook to “Meta” in 2021 to note its commitment. But, despite the investment, the VR headsets did not take off and Meta’s VR platform Horizon Worlds is on its last legs.  

Another dubious initiative in the name of “efficiency” from one of our so-called tech geniuses that we will likely pay for in jobs, data center resources, and all-around digital safety.

The Trump administration is bad at math.

On Friday, the Associated Press reported that an administration official admitted to miscounting how many people in New York receive care through home and community-based services by millions.

Home and community-based services were established during the Reagan administration, Like the name suggests, these services help disabled people stay in their communities instead of institutions. Care through HCBS can include having skilled nursing, delivered meals and building modifications at one’s home.

This estimation error is important in a time when Medicaid is under attack. Last year, Congress passed nearly $1 triillion worth of cuts to this program. The Trump administration’s continued attacks on Medicaid also hint that more cuts could be coming.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Dr. Mehmet Oz claimed in March that around five million out of roughly eight million people on Medicaid in the state of New York receive home care.

In actuality, the number is around 450,000.

“CMS is committed to ensuring its analyses fully reflect state-specific billing practices and will continue to work closely with New York to validate data and strengthen program integrity oversight,” spokesman Chris Krepich told the AP in a statement. CMS did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment by the time of publication.

The administration’s accusations of rampant fraud across the system. During a House committee hearing on alleged Medicaid and Medicare fraud, CMS deputy administrator Kimberly Brandt bragged about CMS’s fraud detection through its aggressive-sounding fraud war room, as I reported:

In Oz’s absence, CMS deputy administrator Kimberly Brandt claimed that the agency’s “fraud war room” was using artificial intelligence to root out alleged Medicare and Medicaid fraud, particularly increased rates of home and community-based services billing in New York and California.

“We are constantly using heat maps and data analysis to be able to look and see where we think the largest shifts are,” Brandt said.

As I’ve also previously reported, there are around seven million disabled people and older adults on Medicaid’s home care program. Just about every state is expected to enact cuts to home and community-based services due to its being an optional Medicaid program.

Home and community-based services also save money for states. According to KFF, the cost of HCBS on average per person is around $36,000, whereas long-term care in places like nursing homes for people on Medicaid is around $47,000.

This underlines how attacks on HCBS are not only heartless in forcing people out of their communities, it also doesn’t make much financial sense.

Sam Altman, who published “ambitious ideas” to add guardrails to AI on the same day he was described as a power-hungry tech leader with a “sociopathic lack of concern” for consequences, just got more bad news. OpenAI is now the subject of a Florida statewide investigation.

Florida officials are probing OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, for allegedly assisting in planning a mass shooting at Florida State University last year that killed two people. 

“We support innovation, but that doesn’t give any company the right to endanger our children,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a Thursday video announcing the investigation. “AI should exist to supplement, support, and advance mankind, not lead to an existential crisis or our ultimate demise.” 

Court documents show that the alleged shooter had more than 200 messages with ChatGPT, including the questions, “If there was a shooting at FSU, how would the country react?” and “What time is it the busiest in the FSU student union?” The suspect also asked ChatGPT about specifics on different kinds of firearms. 

The state’s probe appears to look far beyond the shooting, with Uthmeier also referencing that AI technology can “facilitate criminal activity, empower America’s enemies, or threaten our national security.” 

The Florida attorney general said subpoenas are forthcoming. 

In an email statement to NBC News, OpenAI said that it would cooperate with Florida officials. “We build ChatGPT to understand people’s intent and respond in a safe and appropriate way, and we continue improving our technology,” the statement, in part, reads.

Altman and OpenAI know their products are dangerous and that many people despise them. Just a couple hours before the Florida attorney general’s announcement, Axios reported that the OpenAI’s upcoming model would only be given to a small group of companies out of concern about how the technology could be used. 

(Disclosure: The Center for Investigative Reporting, the parent company of Mother Jones, has sued OpenAI for copyright violations. OpenAI has denied the allegations.)

Last September, OpenAI introduced parental controls to ChatGPT that allow parents and law enforcement to get notifications if a teen talks to the chatbot about self-harm or suicide. The controls were implemented as the company is being sued by parents who allege that ChatGPT played a significant role in the death of their 16-year-old son.

The current safeguards on OpenAI are not enough. As my colleague Mark Follman wrote in 2024 about Elliot Rodger, a young man who killed six people in a mass shooting: 

This tragedy has been wrongly mythologized in the media and academia and poorly understood by the public, its lessons for prevention buried…They are not inscrutable monsters who suddenly “snap” and attack impulsively, but instead are troubled people who spiral into crisis—and whose brewing plans for violence can be detected, explained, and potentially prevented.

Sam Altman wants you to know that he’s just fine. Sure, his company, OpenAI, is reportedly building technology that it fears and some of his former colleagues think he’s a pathological liar, but really? It’s no big deal.

The company’s upcoming model is being finalized and only being given to select group of companies, according to a Thursday Axios report. 

This news comes just after the company released policy recommendations on Monday in a 13-page document titled “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First.” Their “ambitious ideas” claim to add guardrails and safety nets as AI evolves toward a “superintelligence” capable of “outperforming the smartest humans even when they are assisted by AI.”

One terrifying proposal: policymakers should reimagine taxes as AI reduces the need for companies to employ as many workers. OpenAI says the trend could expand corporate profits and capital gains while “erod[ing] the tax base that funds core programs like Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP, and housing assistance.” To ameliorate the potential problem, there could be higher taxes on those capital gains and corporate profits.” 

(Disclosure: The Center for Investigative Reporting, the parent company of Mother Jones, has sued OpenAI for copyright violations. OpenAI has denied the allegations.)

And another: create a “Public Wealth Fund” that gives “every citizen—including those not invested in financial markets—with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.” 

The week started with a New Yorker investigation that might be the most thorough look yet at Altman and why so many people worry about him being at the helm of such powerful technology.

Reporters Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz spoke to more than 100 people, most of whom described Altman as someone with an unrelenting drive for more power. “He has two traits that are almost never seen in the same person,” an OpenAI board member told the pair. “The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.” 

Sue Yoon, a former board member, said that Altman wasn’t a typical “Machiavellian villain,” but instead someone who could convince himself of the ever-fluctuating landscapes he portrayed in his sales pitches.

Combining OpenAI’s policy proposals with the New Yorker investigation reveals a familiar story where an authoritarian Silicon Valley leader becomes synonymous with their technology as their personal whims have significant influence on where the industry—and regulation on it—goes next. And regular people are the ones who deal with the consequences. 

The policy recommendations feel like a desperate PR move in light of OpenAI’s limited release of its new model. AI companies know that a lot of people hate their technology.

As my colleagues Anna Merlan and Abby Vesoulis wrote last month, many in the AI industry feel that the technology is exciting, terrifying, essential for the future, and too overwhelming to stop all at once.

Yet the New Yorker investigation noted that “Altman publicly welcomed regulation, he quietly lobbied against it,” referencing reporting that OpenAI lobbied the European Union to scale back its AI regulation.

Thank you for thinking of us, Sam!

Even Republicans are joining congressional Democrats in calling for President Donald Trump to be removed from office following his threats of genocide against the people of Iran on Tuesday. 

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

Congress is currently in a spring recess, with formal legislative business scheduled to return next week, but Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said in a Tuesday press release that the president’s threats “cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric.”

According to NBC News, over 70 Democratic congressional lawmakers—mostly from the House—have publicly said that impeachment and conviction or an invoking of the 25th Amendment should happen. Section four of the 25th Amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

In this case, the vice president would become acting president. Republican lawmakers have largely remained silent on the issue, but a few have expressed concerns, such as Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Several prominent conservatives once loyal to Trump have voiced opposition, including former Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, right-wing commentator Candace Owens, and right-wing media personality Alex Jones.  

“Now it’s time to say no, absolutely not, and say it directly to the president, no,” Carlson said on his podcast on Tuesday, noting US officials should reject Trump if he orders devastating strikes—including nuclear weapons—against the people of Iran.

Carlson also condemned Trump’s Easter message, claiming it mocked Christians for its profanity, threatening to kill civilians, and saying “Praise to be Allah.” The president had threatened to bomb power plants and bridges—widely considered war crimes—unless Iran leadership “Open[ed] the Fuckin’ Strait” or “you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!”

Trump threatened genocide against the people of Iran Tuesday morning, saying that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

The Truth Social post in full: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

This warning comes as Trump’s latest deadline for Iran’s leadership to open the Strait of Hormuz expires on Tuesday night at 8pm Eastern Time and is a horrifying escalation of his threat over the weekend to commit war crimes by bombing Iranian civilian infrastructure, including power plants and desalination plants. 

But the president clearly doesn’t care. In a Monday afternoon press conference, he told reporters that he was “not at all” concerned about his threats violating the Geneva convention’s bans on attacking resources essential for a population’s survival. The prohibitions bind all United Nations member states. 

“I’m not worried about it,” Trump said in his dismissive Monday remarks. “You know the war crime? The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” 

The US Department of Health and Human Services gave at least $34 million directly to 16 crisis pregnancy centers between 2018 and 2024, according to a US Government Accountability Office report publicly released on Wednesday.

Crisis pregnancy centers, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are “facilities that represent themselves as legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people” but work to dissuade them from seeing abortions, even during life-threatening situations such as ectopic pregnancies. There are between 2,400 and 2,800 crisis pregnancy centers in the United States.

This report comes as the Trump administration doubles down on its “pro-life and pro-family agenda,” according to White House spokesperson Kush Desai. On Friday, the Trump administration, in its budget proposal, announced plans to overhaul its Title X family planning program, moving away from contraception and instead focusing on “optimal health (defined as physical, mental, and social wellbeing), not just medical intervention.” This also seems to dismiss that some people need medical interventions, like IVF, in order to have children.

The researchers at GAO noted that it was difficult to identify how much money was given to crisis pregnancy centers over the six-year period, which does not include Trump’s second term, as they “are not easy to identify in government spending data.” They were able to identify 16 crisis pregnancy centers that received federal funds from HHS because they received a large amount of funding through two HHS Sexual Risk Avoidance Education grants.

“HHS’s oversight of federal funding obligated to CPCs is specific to the
requirements of the grant awarded and varies depending on whether the CPC is
the direct or pass-through recipient of the grant, according to HHS officials,” the researchers wrote. “HHS neither targets nor excludes CPCs from any federal grant opportunities, according to agency officials.”

The amount of grant funding that GAO located given to crisis pregnancy centers was not exclusive to the years during the first Trump administration. 2021 to 2024, HHS gave an average of just under $4.8 million per year over a four-year period during the Biden administration, just under the average of $5 million per year under the first Trump administration.

The GAO report lines up with a 2024 Health Management Associates report, which found that 650 crisis pregnancy centers received close to $400 million from federal funding streams between 2017 and 2023.

Donald Trump’s first national address since launching his war in Iran with Israel on Wednesday night tremendously backfired.

The speech, reportedly designed to reassure Americans that all of his administration’s military goals would be achieved swiftly, provided few new details about how exactly the fighting would continue in the near future.

But one remark was notable: comparing the war against Iran with long, unpopular US wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq to demonstrate how much he has accomplished against “one of the most powerful countries” in just 32 days. Maybe mentioning unpopular wars that dragged on is not a good way to ease anxieties?

Oil prices skyrocketed again in response to Trump’s address, rising more than eight percent. 

While Trump seemed to temper his rhetoric on some of his usual talking points, namely, directly insulting NATO allies and threatening to withdraw from the alliance—something he said earlier that same Wednesday—the president instead stated countries that rely on oil traveling through the Strait of Hormuz should “build up some delayed courage” and take care of the passage. 

“The hard part is done,” Trump said, referring to the extensive airstrikes against Iran that he claims opened the door for re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. The US and Israel bombing campaign has killed nearly 2,000 people as of March 26.

According to the Washington Post, leaders from more than 30 countries will meet Thursday to assess ways to reopen the waterway, including finding diplomatic ways to make the strait “safe” after the war ends (Trump did not state an end date on the war on Wednesday night). Officials say that freeing the strait would necessitate their navies to escort oil tankers. 

It’s another needless Trump war that he is demanding everyone else clean up. 

Today, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the future of birthright citizenship, the justices kept returning to one name: Wong Kim Ark.

Wong was born around 1870 in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the son of Chinese parents who had settled in the United States. As a young man, he traveled to China, and when he tried to come home, he was stopped at the Port of San Francisco. He was denied entry on the grounds that he wasn’t a US citizen because of his Chinese descent and his parents’ status as non-US citizens.

His community in Chinatown pooled resources and hired lawyers. Their argument was straightforward: Under the 14th Amendment, Wong was a citizen. His parents’ immigration status had nothing to do with it.

In 1898, the Supreme Court agreed. And for over a century since, Wong Kim Ark’s case has served as the definitive interpretation of the 14th Amendment: All children born in the United States are automatically US citizens.

That is, unless President Donald Trump gets his way.

Trump has been targeting birthright citizenship ever since his first term. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order attempting to restrict it, limiting citizenship to children with at least one parent that is a US citizen or lawful permanent resident. Federal courts have blocked the order at every turn, but the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, and today they did.

So we sat down with Wong’s great-grandson, Norman Wong, a 76-year-old retired carpenter living outside San Francisco. His family has not only fought for the constitutional right to citizenship, they’re painfully aware of what it looks like when that citizenship, once won, can be used against you.

Like his great-grandfather, Norman, 76, was born in San Francisco. He’s a retired carpenter and still lives in the Bay Area with his wife, Maureen. We met initially over Zoom, where he invited me to the monthly veterans meeting of Cathay Post 384 in San Francisco, the oldest Chinese American post in The American Legion.

He, Maureen, and his sister Sandra were invited by Alicia Ponzio, a Post member, former lieutenant in the United States’ Navy Nurse Corps, and professional figurative sculpture artist. Ponzio, upon learning about the story of Wong through a podcast, became inspired to sculpt a bust of Wong as a young man. At the meeting, she revealed the plaster model seen in the video.

This model she shared with us is one of many renderings made ahead of the final sculpture of Wong Kim Ark, which will be cast in bronze and proposed to stand at his birthplace of the original 751 Sacramento Street in San Francisco.

On Wednesday, the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office announced that it ruled the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Blind Rohingya refugee who was left on the freezing streets of Buffalo by Border Patrol officers, a homicide. Neither Shah Alam’s family, who had waited to meet him outside the facility where he was being held, nor his lawyers, who had been attempting to contact him, were notified of his location. Shah Alam spoke very little English.

The Associated Press reported that the medical examiner’s office did not “reach any conclusions about responsibility” for the homicide and that Shah Alam’s death was “caused by complications of a perforated duodenal ulcer, precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration. “

“The designation of homicide does not imply intent to cause harm or death,” Erie County official Mark Poloncarz said at a press conference on Wednesday. “Manner-of-death determinations are neutral, non-legal, and exist for vital statistical purposes only. They do not indicate criminality, which is the purview of the justice system.”

Shah Alam was initially arrested after an incident where he became lost attempting to return home; the Buffalo Police Department approached him as a threat, ostensibly for holding a curtain rod he used as a walking stick. Instead of trying to assist him, officers tased and arrested him. He was incarcerated for a year before his release, when Border Patrol in effect dumped him.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed on X that Shah Alam “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance,” despite being blind and experiencing other health issues. “DHS is lying,” New York Democrat and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded in a quote post.

Poloncarz said that he has spoken to Erie County District Attorney Michael Keane and New York Attorney General Letitia James about the case, and he encouraged questions about criminal investigations to be directed to them.

“I want to express my deepest condolences to the family of Mr. Amin Shah Alam for the death,” Poloncarz also remarked. “It should not have happened. Simple as that. The death was one that we believe could have been prevented.”

James, in a press release, said that her office is continuing to investigate Shah Alam’s death. “Mr. Shah Alam fled genocide to build a life in this country,” James said. “Instead, he was abandoned and left to suffer alone in his final hours.

In a press release, Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.), who represents the area in Congress, demanded that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Patrol, cooperate in James’ state-level investigation.

“In light of this determination, DHS must fully cooperate with New York State Attorney General James, and newly-confirmed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin must order an independent and transparent investigation,” he said.

In an 8-1 decision on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled against a Colorado law forbidding licensed therapists from trying to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity—a practice known as conversion therapy that the medical profession has long since discredited and condemned.

Decades of research show not only that conversion therapy doesn’t work, it puts individuals at higher risk of depression and suicidality. In response to those findings, and a rising tide of acceptance for LGBTQ people since 2012, 23 states have forbidden licensed mental health practitioners from attempting conversion therapy on minors. The decision in the case, known as Chiles v. Salazar, now threatens to overturn those laws nationwide.

The case was brought by a Christian counselor named Kaley Chiles, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom—the religious-right legal group behind many of the Supreme Court’s recent anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion rulings. Chiles argued that because she practices talk therapy, not the painful aversion therapy widely used in the past, the Colorado law censors her speech and violates the First Amendment. 

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor agreed, joining the court’s conservatives in a majority opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch. “Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety,” Gorsuch wrote.  “Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

“As applied to Ms. Chiles, the State seeks neither to regulate her speech incident to any conduct, nor does it seek to compel disclosure of factual and uncontroversial information,” Gorsuch wrote. “Instead, it seeks to silence a viewpoint she wishes to express.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Kagan wrote that Colorado’s law could have potentially survived if it regulated the content of a therapist’s speech, but did not draw lines based on the therapist’s viewpoint on matters of sex and gender.

“A law drawing a line based on the ‘ideology’ of the speaker—disadvantaging one view and advantaging another—skews the marketplace of ideas our society depends on to discover truth,” Kagan wrote. The Colorado law, she added, “prevents a therapist from saying she can help a minor change his same-sex orientation, but permits her to say that such a goal is impossible and so she will help him accept his gay identity.” A law banning therapists from affirming trans kids’ gender identity, she added, would also run afoul of the First Amendment.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the sole dissenting judge, wrote that Chiles “does not dispute that conversion therapy can be harmful to minors in certain circumstances” nor “does she contest that Colorado has a significant interest in protecting minors from harm.” But, Jackson continued, “Chiles complains nevertheless” because “the particular form of conversion therapy she wants to offer clients utilizes only speech.”

Jackson added that the Colorado law as written did not prohibit Chiles from sharing any views on sexuality, gender identity, or conversion therapy outside of individual talk therapy sessions—like in discussions with patients and their families. The “aim of the statute is not suppressing speech,” she wrote in her dissent. “Talk therapy is a medical treatment. So, why wouldn’t such speech based medical treatments be subject to reasonable state regulation like any other kind of medical care?”

As we’ve reported before, the science on conversion therapy has been considered settled for over a decade:

The science on conversion therapy is unambiguous: it’s both ineffective and dangerous. All the way back in 2009, an American Psychological Association task force issued a landmark report documenting the lack of evidence behind sexual orientation “change efforts,” as scientists refer to them. Since then, APA has only strengthened its stance against both anti-gay and anti-trans conversion efforts. In October 2015, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration published a report concluding that sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts were “coercive, can be harmful, and should not be part of behavioral health treatment.” 

Nonetheless, conversion therapists have continued to practice on the fringes of the profession, typically working with conservative religious clients. In recent years they’ve turned their attention on transgender youth, capitalizing on politicized controversy over medical treatments for trans kids, a Mother Jones investigation found in 2024. And they’ve embraced so-called “gender exploratory therapy”—a treatment posed an alternative to gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors in a Health and Human Services report last year. 

The justices’ decision on Tuesday fell on Transgender Day of Visibility, created by Rachel Crandall-Crocker over 15 years ago. It’s a day to celebrate transgender people and draw attention to the ongoing challenges the community faces. Being a visible, civically active trans person in the United States is becoming increasingly more volatile as Republican legislators—local to federal—seek to codify discrimination against trans and gender nonconforming people. 

In 2025, according to the independent research organization Trans Legislation Tracker, 1,022 bills that would negatively impact the transgender and gender nonconforming community were considered; 126 passed. In 2026, so far, 747 such bills are under consideration—a number that is expected to grow. These laws target people’s ability to seek out gender affirming healthcare, use the bathroom in public and private buildings, dictate what their personal identification says, serve in the military, and celebrate Pride Month, among other things. 

This push is buoyed by President Donald Trump and his administration, who supported the therapist’s position in Tuesday’s Supreme Court case. On day one of his second term, Trump signed an executive order declaring that it would be “the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” requiring agencies to base decisions on an outdated and scientifically inaccurate gender binary and providing a runway for anti-trans attacks across the nation.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, who helped lead the effort to pass state laws banning conversion therapy, said in a statement on Tuesday that legal avenues remain to fight back against conversion therapy. “Survivors can still bring malpractice and consumer fraud claims,” he said. “Licensing boards can still discipline providers who engage in unethical or harmful conduct” 

“Though today’s ruling is not the outcome we sought, our commitment remains unwavering—as does that of the families, survivors, and advocates who have stood beside us for thirty years,” he added.

The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit for queer young people, is one of the groups that filed an amicus brief in Chiles v. Salazar in support of upholding nationwide statutes that ward against conversion therapy. Its CEO, Jaymes Black, called Tuesday’s ruling “a tragic step backward for our country that will put young lives at risk.”

“The Court’s decision today is painful,” Black said in a statement, adding, “but our community has dealt with difficult outcomes time and time again throughout our history. And we will deal with this, too.”

Second Lady Usha Vance is normal and relatable, actually.

Or, at least she said as much on Sunday in an NBC interview promoting her new podcast show Storytime with the Second Lady, where she brings on a guest to read a children’s book. 

“It’s a podcast that really is just for children,” Usha Vance explained. “We will have someone come in—a special reader, we’re calling them—read a fun book, have a very short little conversation about things related to the book, maybe about their career.”

Three episodes were released on YouTube Monday morning, with the first show featuring Vance reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit solo and the next two featuring former racing driver Danica Patrick and author and Paralympian Brent Poppen.

“[We] then invite children to pick up books on their own. It’s sort of just an advertisement for reading,” Vance continued.

The second lady’s launch comes as her husband and other officials in the Trump administration terrorize and inflict brutal violence on children and families around the world—the remainder of the discussion hammered home an awkward whitewashing attempt.

Vance’s young children helped make the podcast set, including building a Lego cherry blossom tree and even has a Costco membership! But when NBC News’ Kate Snow asked her simple questions about her politics and thoughts on the Trump administration, the second lady largely shied away from answering. While Vance doesn’t agree with her husband on every issue, she is “not involved in this in any professional sense,” so she can have “open-minded” and “very productive” conversations with him when his work becomes “important personally.” 

As much as she tries to present the contrary, she is a person with influence within the Trump administration.

“I do feel very comfortable in that no one has ever asked me to engage in any kind of litmus test on anything,” Vance said when asked about her stark political shift from being registered as a Democrat until at least 2014. “What I’ve found is that I was myself in 2014. I can be myself today. And I feel very comfortable in that world.”

Q: In 2014 you were a registered Democrat. Do you feel fully comfortable in the universe you're in now?

Usha Vance: Sometimes I have thoughts that fit very comfortably into one side or another, sometimes I have views that are idiosyncratic pic.twitter.com/yDThevAr5M

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) March 30, 2026

The second lady is comfortable in a government that’s trying to replace educators with AI robots while it detains and deports young children, reportedly kills over a hundred elementary school students by missile strike, and starves families in Cuba of basic living essentials.

It’s all normal and relatable as long as you don’t ask too many questions.