On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it would move two key functions of the Department of Education—disability education oversight and the department’s Office for Civil Rights—to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, respectively, in a move that would give HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. oversight over the nation’s disability education system.

In a press release, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who is overseeing the Project 2025–mandated dismantling of the department, said without elaborating that the decision was made after “careful deliberation and collaboration with stakeholders.” Many disability and other equity-focused organizations have been afraid since President Trump resumed office that he would go through with threats to eliminate the department, long a target of right-wing institutions like the Heritage Foundation.

Even setting aside who runs them—Kennedy at HHS, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche at the Justice Department—the new agencies aren’t appropriate choices to oversee those functions, experts say. “HHS and DOJ have important roles, but they weren’t built to replace the Department of Education’s school-specific expertise,” said Robyn Linscott, The Arc’s director of education and family policy, in a statement. “Moving [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] oversight into HHS pushes students with disabilities toward a medical model, where disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life.”

The National Down Syndrome Congress also called for Congress to halt the changes. “For decades, IDEA, vocational rehabilitation, and the Office of Civil Rights have helped expand educational opportunities, employment, and community inclusion for people with disabilities,” roles that would now be under threat, said Stephanie Smith Lee, the group’s policy and advocacy co-director and former director of the Office of Special Education Programs under George W. Bush, in a press release opposing the plan.

At HHS, disability education would fall under the oversight of an agency head, Kennedy, who has spent decades spreading disinformation about autism and villainizing autistic people.

“As autistic people, we don’t feel safe having RFK Jr. in charge of our education,” Autistic Self-Advocacy Network policy analyst Cameron Lynch said to me. “Autistic students deserve to have their education accommodated for them and provided with the services and supports that they need, rather than trying to be cured from their autism, as RFK Jr. has suggested.”

Carrie Gillispie, New America’s project director of early development and disability, voiced similar concerns. “Successfully supporting the education of students with disabilities requires a scientific and social understanding of disability and learning science,” she said, “neither of which is reflected in [Kennedy]’s rhetoric and policy decisions.”

Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old Haitian asylum seeker, was found dead of hypothermia at a Pittsburgh bus stop March 2, three days after being released from ICE custody 30 miles from her home. 

This week, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office ruled her death a homicide. 

“Ms. Michel was a vulnerable adult, suffering from untreated severe mental health issues and a significant language barrier when she was released from federal custody on February 27,” spokesperson Jim Madalinsky said in a statement. “Based on all available information during the investigation, the pathologist ruled Ms. Michel’s death a homicide.” 

A medical examiner’s homicide declaration, Madalinsky added, is “not to be interpreted as a declaration of criminal guilt.” It simply indicates that “ the death was caused by the actions of another individual.” 

Michel started the asylum process after arriving at the southern border in 2022, Joseph Patrick Murphy, her family’s attorney, told the Associated Press. She was granted humanitarian parole based on urgent need. In the year before her death, she spent six months in Washington County Jail, Murphy said, until a judge said he could not hold her for trial for threatening imaginary people. Then, she was arrested by ICE and taken 30 miles away to Pittsburgh.

“She had mental challenges,” Murphy told Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV on Friday. “She was arrested for at one point screaming at imaginary people, and they knew this. They just dumped her in a bus shelter — language barrier, educational barrier, and psychiatric barrier — and left her to fend for herself. The bus shelter, she never figured out how to leave. She sat there for days, and ultimately froze to death.”

“The ruling by the medical examiner, that is a homicide, means that the death was caused by the action or omission of someone,” Murphy said. “That means there’s some sort of culpability.” DHS, however, denies responsibility: “ICE had NOTHING to do with this woman’s death. She passed away THREE days after ICE encountered her,” they wrote on social media in mid-March. DHS also accused her of “terroristic threats and harassment,” charges which were dismissed in September of 2025.  

Advocates are now calling on ICE to answer for Michel’s death.

“Daphy’s death was preventable and is the result of a violent system that cages people, surveils them, abandons them, dehumanizes them in life, and smears them in death to escape accountability,” said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa). “She deserved care, shelter, language access, and medical support. ICE and every agency that failed her must answer for this.”

The Trump administration announced last week that they would stop publishing data on the deaths of people recently released from ICE detention. But Michel’s is just one of multiple high-profile cases in which detainees were released and allegedly left to die. 

In late February, Nurul Shah Alam, a blind Rohingya refugee from Burma, was found dead in Buffalo, New York five days after Border Patrol dropped him off on a street corner without notifying his family. His death, too, was ruled a homicide. Like Michel, Alam was disabled; and like Michel, he was jailed for some time before his death. 

“Daphy was a person with a kind heart, who loved her family very much,” Michel’s family wrote in her obituary. “Since she was a child, she showed great respect, courage, and love for everyone. She was always ready to help those who needed her help and her presence brought joy and happiness and light into the lives of all who knew her.”

While New Yorkers nurse Knicks-championship hangovers in Donald Trump’s hometown, the president is celebrating his 80th birthday tonight by inviting his friends to a party designed to honor himself: a multimillion-dollar cage fight on the White House grounds. The UFC Freedom 250 event is being billed (by its promoters, anyway) as “the most historic sporting event of all time.”

“From the Revolution to the Octagon,” the extravaganza’s Crytpo.com-sponsored website declares, “this historic event will connect fans through cinematic storytelling and unrivaled competition on the world’s greatest proving ground.” According to the Guardian, fighters will earn bonuses to be paid out in a digital asset issued by the Trump family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial.

Yesterday’s scenes—motocross dirtbikers doing flips against a backdrop of the White House, on a lawn torn up to become a fight stage—were surreal. There were parachute team performances and at least one bald eagle.

Maryland native Travis Pastrana and the Nitro Circus stunt team performed a dirt bike backflip over the octagon on the White House South Lawn, celebrating America’s 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump’s birthday.

🎥: Jeffrey Bill pic.twitter.com/9JAffwQn65

— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) June 13, 2026

One particularly notable aspect of tonight’s fights will be who is in the audience. David Ellison, whose $111 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger was approved by Trump’s Justice Department late last week, will be there. The president and top Republican officials are also expected to personally attend, even as Trump attempts to negotiate a long-awaited agreement with Iran.

“We are very close to a Deal that will bring peace to the region, including to Lebanon, and all sides should stand down,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 10:46 am, as he criticized Israel for striking Lebanon “on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal.”

Whatever happens abroad, Trump will spend the evening watching the title fight between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje. On the off chance that you weren’t invited, it’ll be streamed on Ellison’s Paramount+.

At a press conference this afternoon, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he is concerned about inflation rates after new data showed the consumer price index at a three-year high of 4.2 percent.

“I love the inflation,” Trump said. In Februrary, before the US began bombing Iran, inflation was at 2.4 percent. Trump predicted that inflation will “come down like a rock” once the war is over.

Q: Are you concerned about the latest inflation numbers that came out this morning?TRUMP: No, I love it. I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over — do you know we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil? You know who doesn't know? Iran until right now.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-10T16:08:03.927Z

Meanwhile, Trump suggested that the US has been ferrying oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. “We’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil,” Trump said. “Every night…now I’m going to tell you because they just figured it out. It was very hard for me, I wanted to say it so badly, but I didn’t want to ruin it. But millions of barrels of oil has come out, and that’s why it’s at 85, $90 a barrel instead of 250.”

About an hour later, he reiterated this point via social media post: “Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz.”

When the war is over, “You will see oil drop to where it was before,” Trump said at today’s press conference.

It’s not clear when that will happen, though: today, Trump also vowed to continue attacking Iran. “We’re going to be attacking them…very hard,” he said. Almost 3,500 Iranians have been killed in the US and Israel’s war on the country since February 28.

Delaney Hall has been many things: a jail, a halfway house, a rehabilitation facility. For the past year, however, it’s been something more fraught: an ICE detention center and the site of ongoing clashes between federal law enforcement and protesters. Reporters aren’t allowed in, health inspections are rare, and congressional oversight has been obstructed—as my recent interview with Rep. LaMonica McIver revealed. She’s now a year into a battle against criminal charges stemming from her attempt to inspect the facility.

So much of what we know about the inner workings of Delaney Hall comes from the letters that detainees have smuggled out with allegations of wormy food, denied medical care, and unsafe working conditions. In December 2025, 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, died inside.

With Delaney Hall now thrust into the national spotlight, there’s still so much we don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to two reporters who have been watching this closely.

I sat down with journalist Amanda Moore and my colleague Sophie Hurwitz, both of whom have reported from outside Delaney Hall for Mother Jones.

I asked them how this place became a flashpoint, what protesters and detainees are demanding, and who is ultimately to blame.

WATCH:

The grand jury transcripts from the “Broadview Six” case, in which the federal government tried to charge six Chicagoans with felony conspiracy for their participation in an anti-ICE protest, were released this week, offering a rare look inside an aggressive federal prosecution. 

The Broadview case collapsed in late May amid prosecutorial-misconduct allegations, a month after the harshest charges against the protesters were dropped. The transcripts show unnamed jurors repeatedly pressing prosecutor Sherri Mecklenburg on why defendants faced assault and conspiracy charges when the ICE agent whose vehicle they blocked was unharmed.

“This person wasn’t harmed, but by extension impeding and assaulting his vehicle, that constitutes simple assault?” one juror asked. “The law doesn’t require that you actually touch him,” Mecklenburg said. 

The juror then asked whether the ICE agent had the right to drive into the protesters. “So if the person comes and stands in front of my car, do I have the right to drive against him?” the juror asked. Mecklenburg brushed it off. “That didn’t happen.”

“It happened,” the juror responded. “He moved.” In video from the protest, the ICE agent’s car can, indeed, be seen driving towards the crowd of protesters. 

In another interaction, Mecklenburg explained the requirements of a charge of “conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer,” which the Trump administration has repeatedly brought against ICE protesters. 

“Are you actually presenting any new actual facts or just a different viewpoint on your side?” an unnamed grand juror asked.

“Okay. I’m feeling the skepticism already. Are you going to be able to listen with an open mind? Tell me the truth,” Mecklenburg said.

“I heard this case like last week, and I thought it was a crock of shit then and I still think it is,” the juror said. Prosecutors required multiple attempts across three separate days to secure an indictment—and a visit from Chicago’s U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, who gave a speech to the grand jury on the importance of impartiality, according to a special report released by his office. 

The Broadview case is part of a larger federal effort to silence dissent. Last September, Donald Trump explicitly directed federal prosecutors to target ICE protesters, telling US attorneys’ offices to “charge all such persons with the highest provable offense available under the law.” Some prosecutors resigned rather than comply. Others followed orders: in Chicago, in Los Angeles, and in Washington State, prosecutors came for ICE protesters. 

“The right does have a bloodlust to imprison dissenters,” Kat Abughazaleh, a former congressional candidate and Mother Jones contributor, said in an interview May 27. “I and a bunch of other people got hit by a car while exercising our First Amendment rights, and then the federal government tried to charge us with conspiracy.” 

The conspiracy charges could have put the six defendants, who are all involved in local Democratic politics, in jail for the better part of a decade, all for standing in the way of one ICE vehicle. “The conspiracy charge got dropped about a month ago when we asked to see the unredacted grand jury transcripts,” Abughazaleh said. 

“The government was embarrassed, just as they were embarrassed that ICE shot Joselyn Walsh, my co-defendant’s, guitar. And they should be embarrassed. This is absolutely pathetic behavior from supposedly the strongest government in the world.” 

In Spokane, Washington, three people were found guilty last month of the same charge the Broadview protesters were charged with: “conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer.” Cases against ICE protesters in Texas and Minnesota are ongoing. 

“I think the goal is to make an example out of us,” Abughazaleh said. 

A World Cup referee from Somalia confirmed on Tuesday that US border patrol officials denied him entry into the country.

“I am very, very disappointed,” Omar Abdulkadir Artan, one of 52 referees chosen in April for the upcoming FIFA Men’s World Cup, told the New York Times. “I’m just simply a referee who’s trying to live his dream, the biggest dream of my life, to come to the World Cup.” 

Artan added that he “had the right papers” and “the right visa.” According to the Associated Press, the Somalia embassy in Kenya said it processed his travel visa to the US last week.

US border officials said on Monday that Artan would not take part in the soccer tournament. Artan would have been the first Somali referee to officiate a World Cup game and was named the men’s referee of the year by Africa’s soccer federation in 2025. 

According to a statement from the US Customs and Border Protection, Artan flew to Miami International Airport from Istanbul International Airport on Saturday. CBP inspected him “to verify information or determine admissibility” and was denied entry “due to vetting concerns.” 

The federal agency did not disclose what specific “vetting concerns” it found. 

A World Cup referee was denied entry on June 6 after arriving in Miami, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spox confirms:

“On June 6, a Somali national arrived at Miami International Airport from Istanbul International Airport. During processing, the traveler underwent…

— Sophia Cai (@SophiaCai99) June 8, 2026

Artan told the New York Times that his immigration interview lasted for 11 hours. Afterward, he was put in a holding cell for several hours before being forced on a flight back to Istanbul.

Last June, the White House labeled Somalia as “a terrorist safe haven” with a government that “lacks command and control of its territory.” President Donald Trump has repeatedly hurled abuse at Somali immigrants, calling them “garbage” last December and using fraud cases in Minnesota involving them to justify cuts to social services like child care and the massive ICE raids in the state.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, an American foreign policy and international relations nonprofit, the US gave 3,196 visas to travelers from Somalia between May 2024 and April 2025. In January 2025, Trump fully restricted people from Somalia from entering the US, noting national security and public safety concerns over “foreign terrorists.”

The CBP preventing Artan from refereeing at the World Cup is just one story in a series of US visa denials of national team players, staff, and other sports officials from making it to the tournament. As I wrote last week, according to Iran’s football federation chief, the players had not yet received their US visas. Since then, all of Iran’s players have received visas, but more than a dozen staff members—which can include coaches, medical professionals, and trainers—were rejected.

It’s not unusual for a protest movement to involve absurd-looking symbols. Unions deploy giant rat inflatables to picket companies using non-union labor, people at “No Kings” protests don puffy frog or dinosaur costumes, and Gen Z protesters worldwide can be seen waving a cartoon pirate flag from the show One Piece to symbolize anti-authoritarianism.

In Albania, the latest image of popular revolt against billionaire excess is the flamingo. For the past week, Albanians have protested Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s plan to pave a protected nature reserve and turn it into a luxury resort—a plan which, protesters say, could put the pink birds in jeopardy. Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, told Reuters Monday that he plans to continue backing the project.

The Kushners first encountered the island of Sazan, a former military base off Albania’s coast, back in 2021. While on a yacht trip, Ivanka Trump saw Sazan, and reportedly became convinced she would be able to “help realize its potential.” Now, Jared Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, is spending $1.6 billion to construct an “eco-resort” on Sazan and the nearby Vjosa-Narta lagoon. Environmentalists, however, aren’t sure how eco-friendly the resort will be. Thousands of protesters across Albania have rallied for days, waving cardboard and inflatable flamingos while clashing with police.

Ornithologist Ledi Selgjekaj told Reuters that more than 1 percent of the ​global population of flamingos is in Albania.

“Of course, it’s very important to have investments in the country. It’s very important ​for the economy, but you have to choose very wisely where to build it. There is a reason why this area is called a protected area,” she told Reuters.

BirdLife International, a global bird conservation NGO, has come out against the project.

“A protected landscape of global importance is under attack, and people are demanding an end to the devastation,” said Anouk Puymartin of BirdLife International in a statement. “Nature belongs to everyone, not a handful of investors.”

Greg Bovino, the Nazi-garbed former Border Patrol commander, was ousted in January after CBP and ICE agents during his tenure killed Minneapolis protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

These days, Bovino has a lot of time on his hands, and he’s using that time to post about wanting his job back—and offering to go to New Jersey to “handle it himself.”

For the past week, work and hunger strikers detained at ICE megajail Delaney Hall in New Jersey—and their supporters on the outside—have protested for safer conditions and, ultimately, for their freedom.

Allegations of ICE agent violence, expired food, and refusal to provide medical care continue streaming out of the detention center, where most people detained have not been charged with a crime. 300 people detained at Delaney Hall signed a letter earlier this month saying they are “tortured physically and psychologically” at the facility.

ICE agents—and, later, New Jersey state police—have met protesters inside and outside Delaney Hall with violence, pepper-spraying people, beating them with batons, tasering them, and in one instance, pushing one person into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.

To Bovino, though, that’s not going far enough. During an apparent layover at Newark Airport on Thursday, he asked his followers: “Should I just handle this myself?”

Hey everyone, that’s me at the airport pointing to the next flight to Newark. Flight 3450, 2:27 PM, on time.@SenMullin and the rest of them have been trying to handle these riots and… well, let’s just say it’s not going great.

For those of you in the comments section, give a… pic.twitter.com/CC12CwlPzw

— Gregory K Bovino (@GregoryKBovino) May 28, 2026

Between posts, he admired Hunger-games themed fanart of himself and replied “Yep” to accounts begging that he be returned to his old gig.

“ICE Agents at Delaney, hang in there,” he wrote Friday. “Every one of us wants to be shoulder to shoulder with you.”

“Give them hell, and live the moment!!!”

ICE Agents at Delaney, hang in there.

You have the world watching and supporting your efforts to hold the line.

Every one of us wants to be shoulder to shoulder with you.

In speaking with the Mean Green Team, they send you support and are wishing you the best.

Give… pic.twitter.com/nfm0qBgYC1

— Gregory K Bovino (@GregoryKBovino) May 29, 2026

Neither DHS nor any other leaders actually in charge seem to be listening to Bovino. On Friday, New Jersey’s Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced that she would be sending in state police to “lower the temperature” and create protected protest zones at Delaney Hall.

”We all need to do everything we can to cool things down now,” Sherrill, who has repeatedly called for Delaney Hall to be shut down, said at a press conference announcing the state police takeover. “I will not give ICE the pretext to expand operations in our state.”

But conditions inside and outside Delaney Hall remain dangerous. Last night, state police “lived the moment,” as Bovino would say, by moving in on horseback and pushing protesters back with riot shields and, reportedly, pepper balls and rubber bullets. The work strike inside Delaney Hall, according to organizers with the No ICE In North Jersey Alliance, is ongoing. And Greg Bovino is still unemployed and posting, but state violence pushes on with or without him.

Anyone who works in digital media knows two painful truths. First, depending on how your billionaire boss is feeling, you could wake up jobless anytime. Second, as fun as posting online might be, it rarely changes anything in the real world; you have to go outside to do that. But Bovino doesn’t seem to have learned what every former Buzzfeed listicle laborer knows just yet.

It pays to earn an endorsement from Donald Trump.

Across 118 endorsement, the president boasts a perfect score in 2026’s midterm primaries, ousting a number of longtime Republican lawmakers (and Trump-irritants) in the process.

In Texas, election-denier Ken Paxton took out Sen. John Cornyn. In Kentucky, Trump-backed Ed Gallrein unseated Rep. Thomas Massie—one of the members of Congress who forced the release of the Epstein files—in the most expensive House primary in history. In Georgia, Brad Raffensperger—the secretary of state who refused to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump in 2020—lost his gubernatorial bid to two election deniers.

On paper, Trump is winning.

But these victories might, just might, be losses in disguise. In Georgia, more Democrats than Republicans voted in the primary for the first time since 1998. Texas saw a similar Democratic turnout surge a few months ago, helping James Talarico secure his party’s nomination for US Senator.

What’s clear is that the base of the Republican Party is still deeply loyal to president Donald Trump—despite the war in Iran, broken promises, rising gas prices, and an uneven job market. What’s unclear is how much that loyalty will cost Republicans, who are now anchored to a slate of election-denying Trump loyalists, this November.

Watch the full breakdown here:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a few questions for the head of ICE. On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Democrat sent a letter to David Venturella, the new acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking him to disclose any financial entanglements with the private prison giant GEO Group, where Venturella previously worked.

GEO Group is a major ICE contractor that operates a network of immigration detention centers, including Delaney Hall in New Jersey, where reports of detainee mistreatment have led to days of protests. The company has told investors that it is “preparing for what we believe is an unprecedented opportunity to help the federal government meet its expanded immigration enforcement priorities.”

In her letter, shared exclusively with Mother Jones, Warren asked that Venturella recuse himself from all matters that could benefit GEO Group, such as contract negotiations; that he make his ethics disclosures and related documents public; and that he answer a series of questions to clarify his potential ethics conflicts.

“Americans should not have to wonder whether ICE enforcement priorities are being driven by the financial interests of politically connected detention contractors,” Warren wrote to Venturella. “Your career can be characterized as a continuous, decades-long trip in and out of the revolving door between ICE and the private prison industry.” 

Venturella is one among many past and present ICE officials with deep ties to the private prison industry, but his connections are among the most egregious. He spent more than a decade as an executive at GEO Group, eventually managing the company’s federal contracts. Now, as Venturella takes the helm at ICE—he was appointed May 12 and is slated to start the job May 31—GEO Group is having a great year. 

“Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our company’s history, and we expect 2026 to be a very active year as well,” said GEO Group CEO George Zoley on a May 6 earnings, call touting the “new growth opportunities” that the firm “captured in 2025 and are normalizing in 2026.”

ICE contracts drove a year in which GEO made “up to approximately $520 million in new incremental annual revenues…the largest amount of new business” the company has ever drawn in a single year, Zoley said on that call. With Venturella leading ICE, he could now be in a position to negotiate contracts with his own former employer.

“Given your track record and previous employment at GEO Group, I request that you recuse yourself from all matters that could directly or indirectly benefit GEO Group, including through the award, writing, and execution of federal contracts,” Warren wrote. “Additionally, I request that you make your ethics disclosures, waiver agreements, recusals, and all related ethics guidance public.”

Venturella, legally, will eventually have to release some of this information—as a senior government official, he’ll theoretically be compelled to file a public financial disclosure document within 30 days of his May 31 appointment. There, he’ll list other positions held and money earned. (Venturella’s predecessor, Todd Lyons, filed a very sparse disclosure, featuring only funds related to his spouse’s employment by the Pentucket School District.) 

“Communities across the country are increasingly alarmed that the Trump Administration is building a deportation machine designed not only to terrorize immigrant families, but also to enrich a small network of politically connected contractors and former officials,” Warren charged. “Your longstanding ties to GEO Group and the resulting ethics concerns surrounding your appointment only deepen those fears.”

While employed by GEO Group, Venturella made at least $6 million and negotiated major contracts to reopen shuttered facilities. Venturella and ICE did not answer requests for comment prior to publication.

At first, when I saw these photos of curling scaffolding outside the White House, I thought construction was beginning on the Trump Arch. That assumption, however, shows my limited fluency in Donald Trump’s vanity projects.

This is actually something else entirely: a tarantula-like stage being built for the president’s birthday cage fight extravaganza, called UFC Freedom 250. The fights, which will be part of Trump’s America 250 celebration, will reportedly cost $60 million. Trump announced the event last year during a visit to the Iowa State Fair. This summer, it’s happening for real, featuring boxers Ilia Tupuria and Justin Gaethje.

Oh, you didn’t realize a cage fight was happening at the White House soon? Neither did many of us. Here is a list of things that people at the Center for Investigative Reporting’s New York office think the arena, at least in its current iteration, resembles instead:

1. Alien egg
2. Elon Musk’s first installation on Mars
3. Mall bungee jumping setup, near the food court, right around the corner from Claire’s, probably smelling faintly of cheese.
4. Rollercoaster, but little
5. Church carnival in a parking lot
6. The millionth Transformers film
7. The launch celebration for a new and improved NuvaRing. This one is sort of high-concept, and I don’t really understand it, but I believe my colleagues and here’s a link where you can judge for yourself.
8. St. Louis Arch (a.k.a The Gateway Arch, but a Lego Technic version.)
9. McDonald’s Arches.
10. Installation purpose-built for a mid-sized city’s bid to host the Olympics

I’m no architecture critic, so there’s not much else for me to add here. If tickets to the fight didn’t (reportedly) cost $1.5 million, I’d check it out. I think the Transformers movies are pretty neat, and I think that there are many worse things the president could be wasting his time on than a UFC fight.

Pennsylvania bike shop owner John Ronca has been buying health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace for over a decade. Last year, with enhanced ACA tax credits enacted under the Biden administration, the premiums for his gold plan—the second-highest tier, which includes lower deductibles and often more flexibility in seeing specialists—tripled. Ronca decided to go for a bronze plan with a higher deductible to make sure he, his wife, and his young daughter were still insured. Now he’s putting off surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome because he can’t afford to pay for it in full. His family’s combined deductible is $14,000.

“I was really hoping to have that taken care of, but with the new deductible and the new plan, I’m pretty much pushing that off,” Ronca told me, “and owning the bike shop, my hands are my money makers.”

“If Congress had to have a Bronze ACA plan…it would change immediately.”

Americans are facing an affordability crisis, and health care costs are a major contributing factor. According to a new report from the nonpartisan health policy organization KFF, the average ACA marketplace deductible grew by about $1,000 per person, or around $3,000 per family, since 2025. That’s in part because families like the Roncas are switching to lower-tiered plans with higher deductibles as the premiums for platinum, silver and gold plans become simply unattainable. It’s an unsurprising response, says KFF senior policy analyst Emma Wager, but it comes with a risk.

Families who switch are taking a chance “based on the fact that they’re assuming that they’re healthy, and that their family is healthy, and they won’t need that much care,” Wager says, “but they’re not all going to be correct about that for the coming year.”

Earlier this year, for example, when Ronca’s daughter had an infection and abscess in her lip, the required procedure ended up costing his family more than $2,000.

Already on a bronze ACA plan for his family, Iowa-farmer Seth Watkins seriously considered forgoing health insurance for himself this year so that his wife and two children—both adults under the age of 26—could better afford it. Their combined deductible this year is around $20,000.

When Watkins’ family had employer-provided insurance through his wife’s job as a teacher, getting an X-ray was easy. Now, he says, there’s always a debate as to whether or not it’s worth it, cost-wise, and whether insurance will even cover it.

“If Congress had to have a Bronze ACA plan,” Watkins tells me, “They would not like it one bit. It would change immediately.”

Anthony Wright, the executive director of Families USA, a nonprofit pushing for health care reforms that benefit everyday people, told me that the premium spike is causing a “huge health care affordability crisis” and will continue to until enhanced tax credits—an extension for which passed the House in January, but the specific proposal died before it could be voted on in the Senate, a fault of Republicans—are restored.

There’s also the added pressure of Medicaid work requirements, which serve in part to push more people—often those who already work, but cannot afford insurance—into the marketplace.

“We’re going to have a dramatic [increase] in the people who are uninsured and also underinsured,” Wright said, “and that’s going to put strain on the health care system that we all depend on.”

Watkins is very concerned about how his local hospital will fare under those circumstances, and about the effects of health crises on people like family farmers.

“Our politicians like to say that farmers and independent business people are the backbone of our economy,” Watkins says. “They are doing this and breaking our backs.”

Ronca is in full agreement with Watkins as a fellow small business owner. “Now you’ve got a ballroom coming, we’re in a war that’s billions of dollars,” Ronca said, “but no one talks about what we need—healthcare.”

Having spoken out for the welfare of immigrants and against the war in Iran—and drawn the ire of some American conservatives in the process—Pope Leo XIV is now calling on the world to safeguard human dignity in the AI era.

His upcoming address on Monday, alongside a co-founder of artificial intelligence company Anthropic and a collection of religious leaders and theologians, will serve to launch Leo’s first encyclical, a papal letter sent to all bishops in the Catholic Church. 

In a speech last May just days after being elected, Leo framed the rise of AI as “another industrial revolution” where “developments in the field pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

And on Friday, the pope noted “the unbridled promotion and implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity and the damage caused when chatbots and other technologies exploit our need for human relationships” at a Vatican conference on AI.

Pope Leo XIV explains his choice of name:

"… I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.… pic.twitter.com/bI4F1EBIS8

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 10, 2025

In response to the announcement of Leo’s letter, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah wrote last week on X that “the questions posed by AI are bigger than the AI community. We urgently need the world—religions, civil society, academics, governments—to participate in creating a positive outcome.” Olah will be a speaker at the encyclical presentation.

Anthropic, which develops the AI chatbot Claude, has advertised itself as an AI giant that values risk mitigation. In February, the company refused the Defense Department’s demands to remove safety precautions on its technology, including mass surveillance of US citizens and autonomous weapons. The day after, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s products.

But the relationship between the Vatican and Anthropic poses risks of laundering the AI company’s image with religious and moral leaders. 

Last fall, Anthropic paid $1.5 billion to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit—compensating authors $3,000 for each of the 500,000 estimated books it was accused of training its AI technology on. In February, Anthropic said it was valued at $380 billion, putting it as a direct rival to Sam Altman’s OpenAI.

According to a Friday report in Religion News Service, AI companies have been speaking with the Vatican as far back as 2016 about ethics—including tech leaders like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who University of Arizona students booed at multiple times for drawing similarities between the rise of AI and the beneficial impact of the first computers).

Massive investment in AI companies is continuing at a rapid pace despite its unpopularity among the public. As my colleague Sophie Hurwitz has tracked across the last couple of months, most Americans don’t want data centers in their area, believe AI does more harm than good in their day-to-day lives, and broad adoption of the technology will shrink the number of available jobs.

Whether Pope Leo XIV’s entrance into the AI ethics debate moves the needle remains to be seen. But it’s not the first time a pope’s encyclical has been injected straight into a roiling planetary debate: Pope Francis used a 2015 papal letter to call for action on climate change to prevent the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem,” arguing that our planet was starting to “look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”

Is there a deal? Is there not a deal? The fawning quarters of the right-wing press have spent the weekend so far gushing about how late and hard President Donald Trump is working on a deal to end his war on Iran—even missing his own son’s wedding for “circumstances pertaining to Government.”

But for all that work, come Sunday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social that he will not “rush into a deal” and that “time is on our side.” The not-so-subtle code: There’s no deal just yet.

Just yesterday, Trump posted that “Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly.” But the New York Times reported on Sunday that while both sides have agreed in principle to end the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, both are still describing the proposed deal differently, and even if Iran committed to giving up its enriched uranium, details about how and when would have to be hammered out later.

So, as I write, a peace deal seems no closer, and as my colleague Anna Merlan documented yesterday, the president is spending an inordinate amount of time counterprogramming his eldest son’s nuptials with his usual blend of ominous AI slop; worse for Trump, for all the trumpeting of a deal, his efforts have now pushed some prominent Republicans to break ranks and publicly accuse him of Iranian appeasement.

Sunday’s delay came amid incoming fire from top allies like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Trump’s former national security adviser, Gen. Mike Flynn.

Amid reporting that the deal would unlock billions of Iranian dollars frozen abroad in exchange for Iran giving up its nuclear stockpile, Pompeo slammed the talks as “not remotely America First”: “It’s straightforward: Open the damned strait. Deny Iran access to money. Take out enough Iranian capability so it cannot threaten our allies in the region.”

The deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world.

Not remotely America First. It’s straightforward: Open the damned strait. Deny Iran access to money. Take out…

— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) May 23, 2026

The White House hit back: “Mike Pompeo has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about,” Trump’s communications chief Steven Cheung posted to X last night. “He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals.”

Cruz was also scathing: “If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant “death to America”—now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”

I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran “deal,” being pushed by some voices in the administration.

President Trump’s decision to strike Iran was the most consequential decision of his second term. He was right to do so, and we achieved extraordinary…

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 24, 2026

Flynn warned Trump, “The regime in Iran is lying to you and your negotiators (period, stop!). Do not believe a word they say,” adding that “if we pay tribute to the regime to the tune of $25B, I’m concerned they’ll use it for nefarious purposes down the road.”

Dear Mr. @realDonaldTrump

The regime in Iran is lying to you and your negotiators (period, stop!). Do not believe a word they say. I know you want to get out of this mess. All Americans want this unnecessary war to end. Keep in mind, as you have been told many times, Iran is…

— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) May 24, 2026

An even closer ally of the president, the hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also warned on Saturday that Iran would retain the ability to terrorize the region: “It is important we get this right,” he wrote on X.

If a deal is struck to end the Iranian conflict because it is believed that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be protected from Iranian terrorism and Iran still possesses the capability to destroy major Gulf oil infrastructure, then Iran will be perceived as being a dominate force…

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 23, 2026

Meanwhile, as updates continued to roll in, Fox News reported that no deal would be signed on Sunday.

Among the more than 50,000 words in the DNC’s 192-page autopsy of why it lost the 2024 presidential election, here are a few that do not appear even once: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Jewish, Muslim, foreign policy, protest, genocide.

The report—which was released today, and simultaneously disavowed by DNC Chair Ken Martin—is already generating its fair share of controversy for its typo-ridden, unfinished nature.

“For full transparency,” Ken Martin said in a note released alongside the report, “I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”

It is understandable that an unedited and unendorsed draft would include numerical and grammatical errors, as well as notes saying things like “No sourcing provided for this claim” and “Methodology appears internally inconsistent.” Paul Rivera, the Democratic strategy consultant hired to write the autopsy, arguably can’t be blamed for his spelling errors—that’s what first drafts are for. But there are also more substantial omissions to consider: the report appears to neglect any of the actual policy reasons some Democrats might have chosen not to vote for Harris.

During the 2024 election cycle, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, often using US-supplied bombs. At every turn, when confronted by protesters asking her to do more to stop the slaughter, the party’s nominee, Kamala Harris, demurred. When Democrats outraged by the war asked that a single Palestinian speaker be allowed to speak onstage at the DNC—and endorse Harris in doing so—they were snubbed.

In February, Axios reported that some of the strategists conducting the autopsy report believed that Gaza cost Harris votes. That did not make it into the now-published version. As horrifying testimonies of violence emerged from Gaza, and sources from the United Nations to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem agreed this was a US-aided genocide, Harris did not promise to stop the flow of arms to Israel. In key swing states like Michigan—where thousands of voters cast “Uncommitted” ballots—that made a difference.

Hamid Bendaas, a spokesperson for the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, told Axios in February that his organization met with DNC officials. “The DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election,” Bendaas said at the time.

According to polling by the IMEU, 29 percent of former Biden voters who did not choose Harris—equivalent to roughly 122,380 votes across six swing states—were influenced by Gaza. There were of course other factors: broad economic dissatisfaction, as well as a late-game candidate switch, among them—but to omit mention of Gaza is avoidant at best and dishonest at worst.

The release of the autopsy raises as many questions as it answers. Why is there no discussion of Palestine or Israel? Was Rivera told not to include them, or did he leave them out of his own accord? Neither option is flattering to Democrats. In the former, they are still in denial—trying to paper this over won’t make it go away. In the latter, they still can’t pick the right person for the job at hand.

The Pentagon estimates that it has spent upward of $29 billion on weaponry to bomb Iran since February 28, in a war of choice that has killed at least 3,400 people in Iran and thousands more across the region. 

Americans, far away from the bombs, are relatively insulated from the immediate, human costs of warmaking. But the war is hitting Americans in their pocketbooks—and a new tracker shows how much individual American consumers have spent on higher-priced fuel since the war began and gas prices soared to a national average of $4.50 per gallon.

The Climate Solutions Lab and Costs of War Project at Brown University released a research brief May 18 showing that Americans have spent an additional $42 billion on gasoline and diesel over the past ten weeks. “On average, each U.S. household has paid over $300 more for gasoline and diesel since February 28, 2026, than it would have without the war,” the researchers wrote. 

“This is where Americans who aren’t service members or who don’t have service members in their families are feeling this war in Iran the most,” said Stephanie Savell, a researcher with the Costs of War Project. “It’s a reminder, every time you go to the gas pump, that this country is at war.”

A 2025 report on US consumers showed that most Americans could not afford a $1000 emergency, and federal reserve data that same year revealed that only 60 percent of American households could withstand even a $400 unexpected expense. A surprise $300 surcharge at the gas pump, then, could be disastrous. 

“People are already having to make choices between gas and other basic living expenses, and that is just going to continue,” Savell said. “This is a war cost that affects people on the lower end of the income ladder more.”

The Pentagon still has not provided Congress with an itemized cost of this war—the best numbers we have come from Pete Hegseth’s congressional testimony earlier this month, and then from a Pentagon official who corrected him the next day, saying he had estimated a bit too low. Some researchers say that the costs are likely far higher—somewhere more in the region of $1 trillion. And many of those costs are being kicked down the road to future generations, Savell said: “When the US is engaged in a conflict, a lot of times the spending is credit card spending. So we’re basically deferring payment for the war to future generations.” War borrowing, Savell explained, is “basically taking money from the budget for any sort of social safety net,” and then passing that money along to creditors.

“This data shows that energy price shocks function as an economy-wide, unacknowledged tax on households, with costs comparable to large federal programs and policies,” the Costs of War Project and Climate Solutions Lab researchers wrote in their brief. As the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, that “unacknowledged tax” will keep showing up at the gas pump. 

Donald Trump, meanwhile, told reporters today that high gas prices are not a concern of his. “This is peanuts,” he said. “I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. But I don’t even think about it.”

Trump now has a slush fund to reward his devotees, but who gets a share of it is unclear.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.): “Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) “Will you commit that none of this money will go to President Trump’s campaign donors?”

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing before an appropriations subcommittee, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could not commit. “I am not committing to anything beyond the settlement agreement,” Blanche said in response to Sen. Coons’ question. And to Sen. Van Hollen: “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they are a victim of weaponization.”

That reply, of course, doesn’t answer the question. 

Blanche also maintained that it’s not up to him to decide eligibility as the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will be managed by five commission members. But, per the Justice Department’s Monday press release announcing the fund’s launch, the attorney general will appoint all five members—although one will be chosen “in consultation with congressional leadership.”

The Office of the Attorney General’s explainer document of the fund states that “once the funds are deposited into the Designated Account, the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguard of those funds…or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.” 

To put it more plainly: anyone could be eligible.

According to the Justice Department, the commission doesn’t have to disclose everyone who receives money. “Will you commit to making reports fully public so Americans know who is getting taxpayer dollars out of this settlement fund?” Sen. Coons asked Blanche. The settlement agreement between the IRS and President Trump, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization, specifically states that the commission members will give the attorney general “a confidential written report that includes the name and address of each claimant who has received any relief and if so, nature of such relief.” 

COONS: Will you commit to making reports fully public so Americans know who is getting taxpayer dollars out of this settlement fund?BLANCHE: There are privacy laws that may prevent some of the information from being fully public

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-19T14:14:45.373Z

“There’s obviously laws that exist around privacy that may prevent some of the information that the commission takes in from being fully public.” Blanche responded—a statement that provides those who run the fund an easy out when asked who and why recipients will get the money.

The potential conflicts of interest are endless.

An ICE officer who allegedly shot a Minneapolis man when the Trump administration sent thousands of officers to Minnesota and lied about the series of events that led to the shooting was charged on Monday.

Christian J. Castro, the officer, is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the shooting of Julio César Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, on January 14, just one week after the killing of Renée Good.

A federal agent shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after he and another officer pursued Sosa-Celis’ roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna. Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty said both Sosa-Celis and Aljorna reside in the US legally. The two men’s attorneys said that neither had violent criminal records. 

Federal authorities initially claimed that the two men assaulted a federal officer. The next day, former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem called the event—without evidence—an act of “attempted murder,” and said the men beat the officer “with snow shovels and the handles of brooms.” Then a widely-circulated video showed what really happened, contradicting the federal government’s statements, and the federal government changed their story.

The video shows Aljorna going to his home after crashing his car as Castro chases him. Sosa-Celis was outside and he, Aljorna, and Castro tussled but no weapons were used. The two men then run into their home when the officer shoots at them. 

The FBI said a week after the shooting that it was a case of mistaken identity.

In an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune before she announced the charges, Moriarty said that their investigation into the incident revealed “no demonstrable trauma to [Castro’s] body, except for an abrasion to his left hand.” 

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, which covers all of Minneapolis, issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Castro. In April, the office charged another ICE agent for pointing his weapon at two people while driving illegally on the highway.

The state of Minnesota also sued the Trump administration in March, alleging that it withheld evidence in the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Sosa-Celis in order to prevent possible charges against their agents. 

As my colleague Isabela Dias wrote in January during Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s violence was intentional: 

Under pressure to meet the administration’s goal of 3,000 daily arrests, ICE has been on a hiring spree…The result of that expansion drive has been less than optimal, with recruits failing fitness tests and not undergoing proper vetting. Experts have also raised concerns about the lowering of standards and reduced training times for new hires.

And as I wrote in February following a congressional hearing, the heads of ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, largely deflected questions about killings by ICE officers. My colleagues have reported again and again that they clearly do not care. 

So it is up to local and state governments to hold the federal government accountable.

“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal officers who commit crimes in this state or any other,” Moriarty stated during a press conference announcing the charges on Monday afternoon.

But as she told the Minnesota Star Tribune, “While I understand people really want accountability and they saw what they saw in the [Good and Pretti] videos, this is incredibly complex. The last thing we want to do is make a mistake.”

It’s symptomatic of a system of failed accountability, and the cruelty is still happening today.

It’s been just over a year since Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), a sitting member of Congress, showed up to Delaney Hall, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, to do her job.

Members of Congress have the statutory right to conduct unannounced oversight visits at ICE detention centers across the country, and McIver had done it before.

But this time was different.

Things turned chaotic. ICE flooded the facility with agents. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested. And McIver, a first-term Congresswoman, left that day, about to face two federal felony counts and a misdemeanor, for “forcibly impeded and interfered with federal officers,” according to the charges.

For the past year, McIver, who has pleaded not guilty, has been fighting the case, running to keep her seat in Congress, and making the argument that this isn’t really about her. For McIver, it’s about whether Congress can do its job in the Trump era.

“Honestly, it’s been extremely difficult,” McIver told me in this wide-ranging interview. “I think some days I’m still looking back, like, is this really happening? Because it’s truly unbelievable. I never thought I would get to Congress and have to be dealing with something like this, or being targeted in this way or fashion.”

McIver just revealed in an interview with People magazine that she is facing these charges while she is pregnant with her second child.

“This is really America, and it saddens me that this is happening,” she told me. “It definitely feels like I’m on the island alone, for sure, and that’s why I continue to talk about this case and explain that it’s bigger than just LaMonica McIver.”

Just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the events of that day, I sat down with Rep. McIver to talk about what happened, what went wrong, and why the Trump administration just won’t let up.

Watch the interview in full here: