Stars and Stripes is an editorially independent newspaper that serves the troops and their families overseas. News this past week that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are considering interfering with this newspaper’s congressionally mandated mission to provide a paper to the troops free of any interference from outside the newspaper’s editorial chain of command should concern all Americans. Any unlawful intrusion of this newspaper’s crucial mission would be a detriment to the military readers it serves, and anti-American in nature. Stripes has never been the military’s newspaper. It is the military’s hometown newspaper that reports on the military for the military, and is supplemented with the same stateside news they would expect from any other editorially independent newspaper. The paper is a non-appropriated fund entity and receives approximately a third of its operating budget from the Pentagon with the rest coming from other sources such as advertising, single-copy sales, and online subscriptions. Stripes reporters are with the troops during war and peace, and experts on their subject matter. There are countless examples over the years of the paper reporting on important issues that have resulted in positive change for its readers. Its award-winning 2003 Ground Truth series reporting on conditions on the ground in Iraq alerted military leadership of troops’ concerns in that theater of war. From that reporting:“With so many voices clamoring for attention, Stripes decided to try to find out what the ground truth was in Iraq. What were the concerns troops had as they watched their mission change from storming Baghdad to patrolling it? Were things as bad as some servicemembers said? Were conditions as good as others said?” What Stripes discovered in their reporting led to bipartisan action in Congress to address our troops’ concerns. I am calling on Congress to once again reassert the importance of Stars and Stripes as it did when Trump went down this perilous road in his first term. Trump correctly reversed course, and posted this on social media channels at the time:“(Stripes) will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!” He was as right then as he is wrong now. While I haven’t set foot in the Stripes newsroom in 17 years, I still believe it to be the most important newspaper in America serving its most important readers. It is a lasting symbol of our country’s occasional capacity to flash greatness. It is detestable that Trump and Hegseth do not believe our troops deserve a newspaper that advocates for them and their families. It is truly sad they don’t believe our brave troops deserve the same rights, information and freedoms as every other American. Stripes has been a part of the fabric of this country since the Civil War. It is as American as apple pie. It has survived many decades before this administration came along, and it is crucial it is still around long after it is gone. D. Earl Stephens, United States Navy Veteran, and Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes, 1999-2009 Disclosure: AlterNet Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Roxanne Cooper served as Stars & Stripes' Director of Advertising and Marketing at their Tokyo facility from 2002-2003 and at their Washington, DC headquarters from 2003-2004.

A CNN panel reached a painful conclusion about one of their panelists on Saturday morning’s edition of “Table for Five” while discussing President Donald Trump’s apparent deafness to a slew of devastating polls. They also dragged Republican Strategic Communications Consultant and former GOP press secretary Lance Trover for his reluctance to call out some of Trump’s most obviously misdirected decisions, including threatening to sue the New York Times for citing some of his horrible polls. “Shouldn't this not be done?” asked Higher Learning podcast Host Van Lathan. “Isn’t that bad?” “Shouldn’t what not be done,” asked Trover. “Is it okay to be able to say [Trump] probably shouldn't threaten a lawsuit when he doesn't like a poll?” Van Lathan pressed. “I'm not here to tell the president what he should and should not do. I mean, he does what he does,” said Trover. “We're here literally to give our opinions on policy,” said panelist Josh Rogin, a Washington Post lead global security analyst. “This is literally the gig.” “Table for Five” host Abby Phillip chimed in, asking Trover “is it bad that Joe Biden didn't pay attention to the border?” “Well, I mean, I wish he would have paid more attention,” said Trover, addressing the steady GOP drumbeat that lauded Biden’s tone-deaf policy and helped sink his re-election campaign with voters. “So, let me ask you this question: Is it bad that Trump is threatening to sue a news organization because he doesn't like their polls?” Phillip prodded. “I don't — that’s not the same thing,” Trover insisted. “But that's what you're about,” said Rogin, amid laughter and crosstalk. “She’s pointing out that you're not willing to criticize President Trump in any way.” - YouTube youtu.be

“The Weeknight” Co-host Symone D. Sanders says Republicans at Jack Smith’s Thursday testimony revealed their dangerous plans to disrupt future U.S. elections, even as Smith laid out the details of their leader’s last attempted coup. “… [W]hile Democrats on the committee focused on the past, Republicans looked to change the subject,” said Sanders. “Instead of sincerely grappling with the violence or the attempt to overturn the election, Republicans focused on process. They questioned procedures, attacked the special counsel and debated legal technicalities. … [T]hey did everything they could to make it feel less consequential. That distinction matters.” Sanders said Republicans’ antics, as Smith presented the facts, were an exercise in the normalization of coup behavior. “When a violent attack on democracy is treated as just another political disagreement, something dangerous is happening,” said Sanders. “At times, the hearing felt less like an effort to hold people accountable and more like an attempt to wear the public down until it grew tired of attempting to hold people accountable.” This was not a presentation of the past, said Sanders. What the hearing was really about was the future. “We can argue about rules and process. But what Democrats tried to do, and what Republicans largely resisted, was to remind the country of a basic truth. Jan. 6 was a violent attempt to overturn an election, encouraged by the man who lost it,” she said. “… When serious crimes are not punished, it sends a message. It tells future actors that they can try again. Accountability is not about payback. It is about preventing the next attempt. Right now, the message of accountability has been lost.” She further stated that by focusing on side arguments instead of the crime itself, and by treating election interference as a matter of opinion rather than fact and downplaying real concerns about future elections, as Republicans did during Smith’s presentation, “we risk normalizing behavior that should never be normal in a healthy democracy.” And even now, Sanders says Trump is seeding the ground for future coup attempts, claiming the 2020 election was stolen. “The goal is no longer to prove anything. It is to confuse people enough that they stop knowing what to believe,” Sanders said. Read the full MS NOW report at this link.

The resignation of the agent, Tracee Mergen, was only the latest shock wave to have emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of the shooting of Renee Good.

Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the incident, and Gov. Tim Walz provided few details.

Bulwark Publisher Sarah Longwell and “False Flag” editor Will Sommer have been analyzing the critical youth MAGA vote that helped put President Donald Trump over the finish line a little more than a year ago, and they report their enthusiasm is waning for Trump’s preferred replacement. Polls suggest Trump is deep in cold water and that his lame-duck chapter may already be underway, even before the 2026 mid-terms — primarily because of the expectation that his Republican Party will be trounced and his GOP Congressional majority evaporated. Youth helped put Trump in the White House a second time, but Bulwark surveys of young voters who swung from Biden to Trump last time feel less enthusiasm for electable Republicans and more passion for unelectable boors and white nationalist firebrands — if, indeed, they feel anything at all. “Like, he doesn't give you all the heebie-jeebies at all?” demanded one female respondent, speaking of Vice-President JD Vance, who has already announced his intent to run for president in Trump’s absence at the next national election. “I shouldn't judge a book by its … cover or whatever. But I just kind of like — it’s one of those, like, feelings like — eeyuck — I don't know,” said another. “They're just creeped out by Vance or find him boring, weird, and like no rizz, no rizz,” said Longwell. No rizz is modern slang used to describe someone who lacks charisma, charm, or appeal — particularly in romantic or social contexts. The term suggests that a person is unable to attract others or lacks the magnetism needed to impress or seduce someone. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio got middling to slight enthusiasm from young Biden-to-Trump voters, which looks bad for Vance. However, young MAGA men appeared to be throwing their attention to even more controversial candidates like Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, who coddles white nationalism and Holocaust denialism while demanding a “ho-tax” from Only Fans users. “I don't know if you've heard of Fishback. He's trying to run for governor of Florida. I really like what he's doing. He's young. He's very articulate in terms of what he says. And he's focusing on the people of Florida in particular,” said one survey respondent, who had not been asked about Fishback in the survey. Other respondents echoed his enthusiasm, to the surprise of survey organizers who had not had Fishback on their radar. This, said Longwell, is unfortunate for the Republican Party because critics consider Fishback the kiss of death for centrist-minded Independent voters. “Fishback is sending a clear message to white nationalist groups: “I’m your guy,’” Political Research Associates senior research analyst Ben Lorber told the Miani Herald. Longwell pointed out that Fishback is “polling in the low single digits — in actual Florida, like with actual Floridians — he is not doing that well, but he's clearly getting a lot of attention online.” “This is a guy who, in terms of actual accomplishments in life, is just about at nothing,” said Sommer, who also described Fishback as “insanely racist”. “And he has this kind of insane, twisted backstory. He was at a hedge fund. He got fired from the hedge fund because he was focusing too much on his anti-woke high school debate startup. And basically, he engaged in all this subterfuge where he had people posing as reporters or angry investors at the hedge fund. And as a result, he's ended up with what I think is going to be ... $2 million plus debt to the hedge fund over legal fees.” “He's getting his car seized by U.S. Marshals. He's spending on all these luxury goods and he bought a Cartier watch, wore it to a deposition and the hedge fund said, ‘well, wait a minute, you know, we got to seize that.’ So … this guy is at like the very low level of success in life. And I should say also, there are these allegations in court that he had a relationship with a 17-year-old at his high school debate star.” “It’s definitely a bad sign for where the MAGA movement is headed,” concluded Sommer. “Yeah, it's a really bad sign,” Longwell agreed. Watch the Bulwark podcast at this link.

The Guardian reports President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice has slashed funding and training resources for law enforcement working on investigations and prosecutions of sex crimes against children. Worse, prosecutors and official are terrified of discussing the cuts, which limit their ability to carry out this work, for fear of losing their jobs. “You don’t want to speak too loudly, because you just fear retaliation, and that’s a heavy hand to be dealt when you’re just trying to do your job,” one prosecutor told the Guardian. Major cuts include the cancelation of 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation, which was slated for use in June. The conference, featuring presenters and training on targeting and prosecutorial tactics, would have benefitted state and federal law enforcement officers investigating online baiting and crimes against children. “The sweeping cuts, enacted soon after Donald Trump began his second term as US president, are putting vulnerable children at risk and impeding efforts to bring child predators to justice, according to four prosecutors and law enforcement officers specializing in cases of child sexual exploitation, speaking on the condition of anonymity,” the Guardian reports. Under the pretense of “austerity,” prosecutors warn administration higher-ups are also eviscerating efforts to conduct investigations and prosecution against alleged child predators. “We need to justify all travel for training, trial preparation and meeting with victims. We need to justify it’s ‘core mission’, and the answer is almost always no,” said one federal prosecutor who specializes in crimes against children. The 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation was axed without explanation, which “hurts on a lot of levels,” according to one officer with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce, a national network of law enforcement agencies dedicated to combating online child exploitation. “If you’re not getting the training, it impacts the investigations, especially for new investigators.” The internet world evolves at a tearing pace, and predators are devising insidious new tricks and tactics for nabbing victims. Child predators, they say, are better abusing AI to “groom and target children.” And sources said conference attendance is critical for investigators to keep up with the fast pace of “developments and software for obtaining and analyzing digital and forensic evidence, and other investigative techniques.” Additionally, training forums provide an essential environment to not only learn techniques but to cope with “deeply traumatic” workloads that foster high staff turnover. “This is very isolating work. You can’t go home to tell your family what you did during the day. When you meet other people at these conferences, they’re in the same boat,” the state prosecutor added. “Building those bonds is essential to us staying in this work long term.” Read the full Guardian report at this link.

Over the past year, images of masked, heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting men, women and children – outside of courts, at schools and homes – have become common across the United States. The video of an ICE agent shooting and killing Renee Nicole Good – a U.S. citizen – in Minnesota on Jan. 7, 2026, is one example of the brazen, sometimes deadly tactics that the agency employs. Part of the reason why recent ICE tactics have shocked Americans is because most people haven’t seen them before. Historically, the country’s militarized immigration enforcement practices have played out closer to the U.S.-Mexico border. And for decades, agents with Customs and Border Protection have carried out most deportations near the border, not ICE. From 2010-2020, nearly 80% of all deportations were initiated at or near the U.S.-Mexico border. During the COVID-19 pandemic, that number jumped to 98%, as both the Trump and Biden administrations utilized Title 42, a public health statute that allowed the government to rapidly deport recently arrived migrants. But Trump during his second presidency has greatly shifted immigration enforcement north into the interior of the U.S. And ICE has played a central role. As international migration and human rights scholars, we have examined recent federal immigration policy to determine why ICE has become the main agency detaining and deporting migrants as far away from the southern border as snowy Minnesota. And we have also explored how the transition in immigration control from the southern border to more Americans’ front lawns could be shifting the public’s views on deportation tactics. Migration as a threat ICE is a relatively new agency. The 2002 Homeland Security Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, created the Department of Homeland Security, known as DHS, by merging the U.S. Customs Service – previously under Treasury Department control – and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, formerly under the Justice Department. DHS has 22 agencies, including three that focus on immigration: Customs and Border Protection, ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which manages legal immigration and naturalization. There is no inherent reason that immigration enforcement should fall under homeland security. But immigration was deemed a national security matter by the George W. Bush administration after 9/11. In a 2002 presidential briefing justifying DHS’s creation, Bush said, “The changing nature of the threats facing America requires a new government structure to protect against invisible enemies that can strike with a wide variety of weapons.” The U.S. government has viewed immigration from this national security perspective ever since. The full impact of the deportations The Trump administration in early 2025 set a goal of deporting 1 million people during its first year. But with so few crossings, and thus deportations, at the U.S.-Mexico border, the administration instead has focused its efforts on the U.S. interior. Trump’s 2025 tax and budget bill reflected this reprioritization, allocating US$170 billion over four years to immigration enforcement, compared to approximately $30 billion allocated in 2024. Roughly $67 billion goes toward immigration enforcement at the border, including border wall construction. But the largest percentage of the bill’s immigration funding – at least $75 billion – goes toward arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants already living in the U.S. The Trump administration did not initiate deportations from the U.S. interior. They have formed part of other administration’s policies, both Democratic and Republican. Interior border enforcement increased under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s with the introduction of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which widened the criteria for deportations. And former President Barack Obama was referred to as the “Deporter in Chief” after his administration carried out more than 3 million deportations over his two terms, with roughly 69% of deportations occurring at the border. But the astronomical growth of government funding toward migration control – at the border and in the U.S. – got the country to where it is today. Between fiscal year 2003 and 2024, for example, Congress allocated approximately $24 toward immigration enforcement carried out by ICE and CBP for every $1 spent on the immigration court system that handles asylum claims. The new money allocated under the 2025 budget bill, and the reprioritization of immigration enforcement from the border to the interior, partly explains why Americans are now seeing the long-term consequences of border militarization play out directly in their communities. Americans may not know about the experiences of migrants who are quickly deported near the border, but it is harder to ignore recent images of people snatched up within their own neighborhoods. Now the visible targets of border enforcement are increasingly immigrants who have built their lives in the U.S. – neighbors, friends, co-workers – as well as anyone who opposes ICE’s tactics, like Renee Good. Changing political attitudes In fact, the violence of Trump’s mass deportation campaign may be changing how Americans view immigration. Just before the 2024 presidential election, a Gallup Poll found that 28% of Americans believed that immigration was the most important problem facing the nation – the highest percentage since Gallup began tracking the topic in 1981. This number dropped to 19% in December 2025, reflecting how more Americans see immigration as a routine issue that the government can manage rather than a crisis that needs to be dealt with. This is supported in the academic literature. Migration scholars have shown that voters often support strict immigration policies in the voting booth but resist and protest when governments attempt to implement those policies in organized immigrant communities. In 2002, for example, migration scholar Antje Ellermann documented that immigration officers reported it was more difficult to detain and deport people in Miami – because of resistance by a politicized immigrant community – compared to relatively conservative and less organized communities in San Diego. But in both places, Republican and Democratic lawmakers were influential in intervening in individual cases to prevent deportations. This is because senior immigration officials, Ellermann noted, were influenced by media attention and pressure by members of Congress to grant relief. Support for Trump’s handling of immigration is trending downward. Only 41% of Americans approved of Trump’s approach to immigration as of early January 2026, compared to 51% in March of last year, according to CNN polling. This declining support for Trump’s tactics comes as Republican senators such as Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Joni Ernst of Iowa have criticized ICE and its operations in Minnesota. Kelsey Norman, Fellow for the Middle East, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University and Nicholas R. Micinski, Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Cultural Relations, American University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When Denmark European Parliament member Anders Vistisen stood before a microphone this week and bluntly told President Donald Trump to “F—— off,” he appeared to be echoing the general sentiment facing Trump back at home, according to the Washington Post. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell — who is universally recognized for expressing few personal opinions — responded with comparable disdain to panned subpoenas from Trump’s Justice Department related to a federal renovation project. Powell submitted a defiant video emphasizing the importance of “standing firm in the face of threats.” The Post, in a story citing 'sharper pushback' in its headline, reports comparably stoic figures are now becoming markedly less stoic. “On Thursday, former special counsel Jack Smith vigorously defended his efforts to prosecute Trump, telling a congressional committee that the president ‘willfully broke the very laws that he took an oath to uphold,’” according to the Post. And when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth censured Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), a retired and decorated Navy officer and astronaut for daring to remind U.S. military personnel that they can disregard some illegal orders, Kelly responded with his own vigorous clapback. Kelly launched a lawsuit for violating a provision of the U.S. Constitution protecting the free speech rights of lawmakers. He’s also blasted Hegseth on X, accusing the secretary of wanting “our longest-serving military veterans to live with the constant threat that they could be deprived of their rank and pay years or even decades after they leave the military just because he or another Secretary of Defense doesn’t like what they’ve said.” Even former president Bill Clinton — a demure non-voice in political circles of late — jumped in on the act, responding to a subpoena by Rep. James Comer (R-Kent.) with a hostile letter, pointing out that Republicans strangely dismissed seven of eight subpoenas without any of the subpoena targets “saying a single word.” Clinton also blasted Republicans and their Republican president — whose name appears in the Epstein files countless times — for pardoning “people who laid siege to the U.S. Capitol” and calling them “heroes.” Congressional Democrats, who initially responded meekly to Trump’s 2024 win, are now openly calling the president a “huckster,” in addition to other choice words, according to the Post. California Gov. Gavin Nesome, visibly pointed and laughed at the podium during Trump’s slurring, meandering speech in Davos. According to the Post, there is no end to the mounting contempt and open defiance to the president, particularly among the U.S. population, which was out in force this week over the recent killing of a Minneapolis mother by Homeland Security agents and the federal occupation and presence in Trump’s targeted blue cities. “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told a press briefing after Good’s death that Trump officials’ account of what happened, which put the blame on Good, was ‘bulls——.’ He added, ‘To ICE, get the f—— out of Minneapolis,’ and he followed that up with a New York Times op-ed headlined, ‘Trump Is Lying to You,’” reports the Post. At this point, the last remaining bastion of Trump’s loyal following appears to be Republicans, who are now facing ever-declining chances for re-election as the public’s opinion of their obeisance continues to sour. Read the Washington Post report at this link.

An ethics watchdog group filed a complaint Thursday seeking an investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney — now the No. 2 at the Justice Department — broke federal conflict-of-interest law when he issued a new prosecution policy that benefits the cryptocurrency industry. The complaint comes after a ProPublica investigation revealed last month that Todd Blanche owned at least $159,000 worth of crypto-related assets when he ordered an end to investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges launched during President Joe Biden’s term. Blanche, the deputy attorney general, issued the order in an April memo in which he also eliminated an enforcement team dedicated to looking for crypto-related fraud and money-laundering schemes. Blanche had previously signed an ethics agreement promising to dump his cryptocurrency within 90 days of his confirmation and not to participate in any matter that could have a “direct and predictable effect on my financial interests in the virtual currency” until his bitcoin and other crypto-related products were sold. Later ethics filings show Blanche divested from the investments more than a month after he issued the memo. Even when he did ultimately get rid of his crypto interests, his ethics records show he did so by transferring them to his adult children and a grandchild, a move ethics experts said is technically legal but at odds with the spirit and intent of the law. In its complaint this week, the Campaign Legal Center asked the Justice Department’s acting inspector general to launch an investigation. The complaint alleged that the evidence suggests that Blanche “blatantly and improperly influenced DOJ’s digital asset prosecution guidelines while standing to financially benefit.” “The public has a right to know that decisions are being made in the public’s best interest and not to benefit a government employee’s financial interests,” Kedric Payne, the organization’s general counsel and senior director of ethics, wrote in the complaint. The inspector general’s office “should investigate and determine whether a criminal violation occurred.” The Campaign Legal Center is a nonpartisan government watchdog group dedicated to addressing challenges facing democracy in the U.S. Its trustees and staff include Democrats and Republicans, including Trevor Potter, a Republican former chair of the Federal Election Commission, who serves as president of its Board of Trustees. Under the federal conflicts-of-interest statute, government officials are forbidden from taking part in a “particular matter” that can financially benefit them or their immediate family unless they have a special waiver from the government. The penalties range from up to one year in jail or a civil fine of up to $50,000 all the way to as much as five years in prison if someone willfully violates the law. In the complaint, Payne alleged that Blanche’s orders violated the law because they benefited the industry broadly, including his own investments. He estimated that Blanche’s bitcoin alone rose by 34%, to $105,881.53, between when he issued the memo and when he divested. At the time he issued the memo, Blanche also held investments in several other cryptocurrencies, including Solana and Ethereum, and stock holdings in Coinbase. Payne said “strong evidence” of wrongdoing triggered his group’s request for an investigation. “I can’t think of another situation where I’ve seen someone sign an ethics agreement and then take an action that doesn’t comply with the agreement and you can clearly verify that they did it,” said Payne, a former deputy general counsel at the Office of Congressional Ethics and the U.S. Energy Department. In a statement sent to ProPublica on Friday, a Justice Department spokesperson said: “Deputy Attorney Blanche upholds the highest levels of transparency and ethical standards. As such, this was appropriately flagged, addressed, and cleared in advance. This is nothing more than another baseless character assassination that takes resources away from the important work the Justice Department is doing each day to fight crime, fraud, drug trafficking and more to protect the American people.” Blanche, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, was Trump’s lead attorney in the Manhattan trial that resulted in his being convicted of 34 felonies stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn actress, Stormy Daniels. Blanche also defended Trump against criminal charges accusing him of conspiring to subvert the 2020 election and retaining highly classified documents. (Those two cases were dropped after Trump was reelected president.) Since gaining Senate confirmation on March 5, Blanche has helped lead a remaking of the Department of Justice and made headlines in other ways. As news of Trump’s ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein gained momentum last year, Blanche personally interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidante now serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping him sexually abuse underage girls. In his April 7 memo titled “Ending Regulation by Prosecution,” Blanche condemned the Biden Justice Department’s tough approach toward crypto as “a reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution, which was ill conceived and poorly executed.” The memo disbanded the agency’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which had won several high-profile crypto-related convictions. Blanche said the agency would instead target only the terrorists and drug traffickers who illicitly used crypto, not the platforms that hosted them. “The digital assets industry is critical to the Nation’s economic development and innovation,” Blanche wrote. “President Trump has also made clear that ‘[w]e are going to end the regulatory weaponization against digital assets.’” The market reacted favorably; crypto trading spiked. In an ethics filing he electronically signed in June, Blanche said his bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments — including Solana, Cardano and Ethereum — “were gifted in their entirety to my grandchild and adult children.” Financial disclosure records don’t provide exact amounts but instead a broad range for the worth of a government official’s investment. At that point, Blanche’s records show his transfers to his family members were worth between $116,000 and $315,000. He said he sold additional crypto-related investments worth between $5,000 and $75,000. The divestment took place in late May and early June, the ethics filing said.

Susan Collins, the most vulnerable Republican in the Senate, would not say whether she supported the Trump administration’s ICE operation in Maine.

Foreign leaders, Catholic archbishops and the Federal Reserve chairman are among those challenging Trump after a first year in which the president’s critics often tried to placate him.

U.S. and European officials say they are unaware of any intelligence that shows China and Russia are endangering the island, which is protected by the NATO security umbrella.

U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. ruled that a felon disenfranchisement provision in the state’s constitution violates the federal Virginia Readmission Act of 1870.

U.S. trade policy has devastated the Canadian auto industry and pushed the country to reach an agreement that will make it easier for Chinese companies to sell cars there.

After a particularly turbulent week, Republicans on Capitol Hill are becoming more cautious in their support for President Donald Trump. That's according to a Friday analysis by the Atlantic's Russell Berman, who wrote that the president's chaotic appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland appeared to have rattled some of his Republican backers in Congress. It wasn't until NATO countries convinced Trump to back down from his threats to take Greenland by force that Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) relaxed in his calculated criticism of the administration. "Sabre-rattling about annexing Greenland is needlessly dangerous," Moore said in a joint statement with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) issued prior to the Davos summit. Berman wrote that Moore's criticism stood out in particular due to his position as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference. The Atlantic writer noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) previously held Moore's position before being elected speaker. Moore is also a descendant of Danish immigrants, making Greenland — an autonomous territory under the Kingdom of Denmark — a personal subject for him. Aside from Moore, Berman noted that Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) both also loudly criticized Trump's threats to invade Greenland. Bacon suggested that if Trump indeed deployed the U.S. military to a NATO ally, it could lead to his impeachment. However, Berman observed that because Bacon and Tillis were not running for another term in 2026 and Moore was, the Utah Republican was more careful with his words. Moore stressed that regardless of the framework of the Greenland agreement Trump made with NATO, Congress would still need to grant final approval of any "sustained military presence" or "trillion-dollar acquisition." But he offered measured praise of the administration, saying Trump was a "tough negotiator" and that he was confident both the U.S. and Denmark would iron out an agreement on Greenland that would be a "net positive for everybody." Berman asserted that while Moore's split with Trump was "more a hairline fracture than a full rupture," it nonetheless signaled that Republicans were becoming more leery of the lame-duck president. "[I]t still doesn’t take much — in this case, the barest outlines of a diplomatic agreement — for Trump to bring a jittery congressional Republican back into the fold," Berman wrote. "But as global crises mount and the midterm elections near, the president is discovering that his party is not quite as sanguine as it once was."

The ruling represents another setback in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) is offering advice to his Republican friends trying to hold their seats in the upcoming midterms: Get away from the Republican Party. “If I were a Republican candidate running in this cycle and I was in anything close to a competitive district, I would be making sure that I have a brand that is separate and distinct from the party,” Dent said during a Friday panel discussion on MS NOW. “If my brand, in a year like this, is generic Republican, that might be fine in north Alabama, but it isn't going to work in Allentown, Pennsylvania, or suburban New Jersey or many other places where Republicans hold seats. And if they're not able to … find a brand separate and distinct from the party, they are going to be in big, big trouble.” Dent warned that Republicans are facing “real political volatility,” and that “there have only been two elections [this century] where we did not see a change in power from the House or the Senate or the presidency.” Worse, President Donald Trump is the face of the party, and his image will be hard for Republicans from swing or GOP-leaning districts to escape. “Let's look at November and two races in particular, New Jersey and Virginia, where Trump lost women in both of those states by about eight points in 2024. This time, the Republican candidates lost women in those states by over 20 points. That should tell you something. And I think what Republicans are looking at right now, going into the midterms, is with Trump's bad approval ratings it’s difficult,” said Dent. “I mean, they're kind of hoping to turn out these Trump-only voters, but that's very hard to do in a midterm election,” Dent added, and pointed to the party’s plummeting approval with independents. “Independent voters are actually very concerned about the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies. That issue plays very hard with them ... And so, with the president's bad numbers being driven by his conduct in office, his focus on the ballroom, on the Kennedy center, taking over Greenland and all these things that are really not central to Americans’ lives, he’s harming these Republican candidates. I mean, it seems like Donald Trump is doing everything he can to harm Republicans who are going to be on the ballot in 2024.” - YouTube youtu.be

Acclaimed Hollywood director James Cameron recently elaborated on why he left the United States, and lamented that the U.S. has become paralyzed by political division under President Donald Trump. The Hill reported Friday that Cameron – who directed the "Avatar" series along with blockbuster films like "Titanic" and the first two installments of the "Terminator" series – gave frank criticism of the political climate in the United States during an interview with journalist Graham Bensinger. The Canadian-born filmmaker said that while he left the U.S. for his 12,000-acre New Zealand estate during the Covid-19 pandemic, he's in no hurry to return. He referred to his newly adopted home country as more "sane" than the United States due to its respect of science and its high vaccination rate. "This is why I love New Zealand," Cameron said. "People there are, for the most part, sane, as opposed to the United States, where you have a 62 percent vaccination rate, and that’s going down, going the wrong direction." The Oscar-winning director then posed a rhetorical question to Bensinger, asking: "Where would you rather live?" "A place that actually believes in science and is sane and where people can work together cohesively toward a common goal, or a place where everybody’s at each other’s throats, extremely polarized, turning its back on science and basically would be in utter disarray if another pandemic appears?" He said. Bensinger remarked that the United States was "a fantastic place to live," but referred to New Zealand as "stunningly beautiful." Cameron countered: "I'm not there for the scenery, I'm there for the sanity." Cameron has been a consistent Trump critic. According to The Hill, Cameron said the 2024 election was "like watching a car crash over and over." He said during a 2025 podcast that he viewed the U.S. as turning away "from anything decent." "America doesn’t stand for anything if it doesn’t stand for what it has historically stood for," he said not long after Trump's second inauguration. "It becomes a hollow idea, and I think they’re hollowing it out as fast as they can for their own benefit."

The U.S. Southern Command said it had asked the Coast Guard to search for one survivor.

Laura Loomer – a MAGA social media influencer who has been referred to as President Donald Trump's unofficial "loyalty enforcer" — posted a lengthy screed to her 1.8 million followers attacking Vice President JD Vance In a Friday post to her X account, Loomer addressed Vance's recent remarks in which he appeared to heap criticism on Loomer while quote-tweeting one of her posts. The vice president wrote: "It's interesting that some 'conservative influencers' spend all of their time attacking the administration and sowing division. Disgraceful actually." Loomer responded to Vance's post by challenging him to speak out against conservative activists like neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, who used a slur about his Indian American wife. She also pointed out that he has so far remained silent about far-right commentator Tucker Carlson, "who has attacked every single policy of the Trump administration, and who is currently being broadcasted on Iranian state television." "It’s rich, isn’t it? You can carry the casket of Charlie Kirk but you won’t call out Tucker for promoting a guy on his show who accused Erika Kirk of being involved in her husband’s assassination," Loomer wrote, tagging Erika Kirk's official account. "Being aligned with the President is more important than being friends with degenerates," Loomer continued. "We are all shocked you refuse to call out the Neo Nazis who attack Jews and Hindus like your wife and demand that she convert to be worthy in their eyes." "You refuse to call out those who profit off of attacking your boss Donald Trump on their silly Consevative[sic] podcasts because you want their votes in 2028, even if they spew poison and attack President Trump every single day," she added. "Let’s call it all out. Doesn’t that seem reasonable? Or should we keep pretending this is about abortion? Disgraceful, actually. My loyalty is to your boss, President Trump. And it always will be." Vance's initial tweet maligning "conservative influencers" came after Loomer questioned why the GOP was "pushing more abortion messaging in a midterm election year." "Didn't they learn their lesson in 2018?" She wrote.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development said it would punish public housing authorities that did not adequately verify tenants’ immigration status within 30 days.

I Paper columnist Simon Marks writes that European leaders are already convinced President Donald Trump will try to rig the U.S. midterms and probably the subsequent national election. “There is invariably a ‘tell’ that reveals unannounced ideas percolating away inside his mind,” said Marks. “His daily, stream-of-consciousness engagements with White House visitors and members of the press corps often include throw-away lines that turn out to contain the germ of a notion taking root within his grey cells.” Trump recently mused that he had accomplished so much that “there shouldn’t even be an election” in November, Marks notes. And while White House media and Trump whisperers dismissed that little comment as “facetious,” Marks said observers couldn’t help but wonder how serious he was. “[W]hen Trump made two separate references in the past fortnight to the possibility of cancelling the US’s midterm elections, … eyebrows were raised,” said Marks, pointing out that the midterms would be a referendum on Trump’s second term and that polls indicate his party is likely to lose its slim majority in the House and possibly control of the Senate. “Were Republicans to lose control of both, under normal circumstances, Trump would be considered a lame duck, increasingly unable to push through his agenda,” Marks said. “… Democrats would have the power to begin impeachment proceedings against him and a host of senior cabinet members, and majorities in both chambers would set the stage for across-the-board investigations into the administration’s actions.” This is a scenario Trump will fight to avoid by any means. And while the president can’t outright scrap the vote, he can “work to pre-game the outcome to boost the prospects of Republican candidates.” Redistricting is one of Trump’s more obvious attempts at gaming the system, but Marks said Trump is also using his administration to try to control who gets to vote in November. “White House lawyers are demanding that 44 of America’s 50 states hand over un-redacted voter rolls, including not just the names and addresses of registered voters but also their driving license details and several digits from their social security numbers,” Marks said, adding that it’s even suing twenty-four states that have refused to surrender the info. More than 20 Republican-governed states are cooperating, however, which Marks said lays the foundation “for potential vote-suppressing skullduggery” that could challenge the votes of thousands of Democratic Party supporters. “Republican ‘election monitors’ [also] plan to sift through the data they’ve already received, vowing to crack down on ‘irregularities’ that Trump falsely claims have sullied successive US elections – except, of course, for those he won,” Marks said, adding that Trump could be planning to “suppress voter turnout” with the help of federal uniformed officers to stoke “a sense of insecurity on the streets of Democratic stronghold cities” in the run-up to November. Read the I Paper report at this link.

The agency says that victims of an investment offering involving Gemini Trust got their money back, though after a regulatory action brought by the New York attorney general.