Evelyn Reynolds

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    Scientists rush to bolster climate finding Trump administration aims to undo

    Veteran climate scientists are organizing a coordinated public comment to a US Department of Energy (DOE) report that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on the climate crisis.The report, published late last month, claimed concerns about planet-warming fossil fuels are overblown, sparking widespread concern from scientists who said it was full of climate misinformation; it was an attempt to support a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to undo the “endangerment finding”, which forms the legal basis of virtually all US climate regulations.“A public comment from experts can be useful because it injects expert analysis into a decision-making process that might otherwise be dominated by political, economic, or ideological considerations,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A&M University who is organizing the response to the report. “Experts can identify technical errors, highlight overlooked data, and clarify uncertainties in ways that improve the accuracy and robustness of the final policy or report.”The response comes as part of a broader wave of experts’ attempts to uphold established climate science as the Trump administration promotes contrarian and unproven viewpoints.The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Nasem), the country’s top group of scientific advisers, has launched a “fast-track” review of the latest evidence on how greenhouse gases threaten human health and wellbeing – a move announced following the proposed endangerment-finding rollback.Nasem, which advises the EPA and other federal agencies, plans to release their findings in September, in time to inform the EPA’s decision on the endangerment finding. The initiative will be self-funded by the organization – a highly unusual practice from the congressionally chartered group, which usually responds to federal bodies’ calls for advice.“It is critical that federal policymaking is informed by the best available scientific evidence,” said Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, in a statement.Trump administration efforts to block access to data have also inspired pushback. This month, the president ousted the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after baselessly saying the data it publishes is “rigged”.In earlier weeks, federal officials have also deleted key climate data and reports such as the national climate assessments and the US Global Change Research Program from government websites. The administration has changed 70% more of the information on official environmental websites during its first 100 days than the first Trump administration did, according to a report the research group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative published last week.In light of these actions, research organizations such as the Public Environmental Data Project and Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative have worked to safeguard and publicize data that the federal government is hiding from the public.“Attacks on science are dangerous because they erode one of society’s most effective tools for understanding the world and making decisions in the public interest,” said Dessler. “When political or ideological forces undermine scientific institutions or discredit experts, they weaken our ability to harness this powerful tool.”Asked for comment about the Nasem review, an EPA spokesperson repeated a comment offered earlier this month: “Congress never explicitly gave EPA authority to impose greenhouse gas regulations for cars and trucks.”The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to set emission standards for cars if the EPA administrator determines that their emissions endanger public health or welfare. That includes greenhouse gas emissions, due to the endangerment finding.Asked for comment on the DOE report supporting the EPA’s position, Department of Energy spokesperson Ben Dietderich also repeated an earlier comment. “This report critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence – not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous presidential administrations,” he said.The UN and the US have regularly convened top scientists to produce scientific climate reports, which warn that urgent action to curb emissions is needed.Dietderich also said officials “look forward to engaging with substantive comments” on the report.However, “the real question is whether they’ll listen to us”, said Dessler. More

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    New York mayor frontrunner Mamdani trains fire on Trump as Cuomo attacks

    New York City’s mayoral race is heating up, with Zohran Mamdani, the young progressive who leapt ahead of establishment figures in the primary to win the Democratic party nomination, appearing to widen his lead over his main rivals this week.Mamdani, 33, edged further ahead of the former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, with the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, far behind, in advance of the election this November to pick a leader for the largest city in the US.In a metropolis that leans Democratic, he was also far ahead of the Republican talkshow host Curtis Sliwa, and also another independent, the sky-diving former federal prosecutor Jim Walden.According to a poll released on Tuesday, Mamdani, who has been endorsed by fellow leftwingers on the national stage such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, held a 19-point lead over Cuomo, his nearest rival.It was however, a small-scale survey, in which the Siena poll sampled just 317 registered voters and cited an unusually wide 6.7% margin of error.Mamdani is a Muslim, which garnered some negative attacks ahead of the primary, and a member of the Democrat Socialists of America’s nine-member “State Socialists in Office” bloc in New York’s state assembly.Cuomo had been expected to win the Democratic primary, but despite his almost universal name recognition, he was beaten after being weighed down by an overly conventional campaign and a damaged political past having resigned as governor in a torrent of accusations of sexual harassment and bullying on the job.Mamdani was deemed on Tuesday by Siena to be 32 points ahead of Sliwa and held a 37-point lead over Adams, who has been plagued by allegations of corruption.With Mamdani as the candidate to beat, his credentials are now under attack and he has just four years under his belt as a state legislator. Cuomo has hit Mamdani for living in a rent-stabilized – or rent-regulated – apartment – where the rent is $2,500 a month when the market rate would be $8,000, while he earns $147,000 a year and is campaigning on housing affordability and calling for higher taxes for the wealthiest New Yorkers.Cuomo has accused Mamdani of “callous theft” and proposed a new means-test law, “Zohran’s Law”, that would control who gets to live in the city’s 1m rent-stabilized dwellings. The Mamdani campaign has said their candidate would have met Cuomo’s proposed qualify 30% rent-to-income standard when he moved in and was earning $47,000 a year, and described Cuomo’s proposal as “petty vindictiveness”.However, the Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said the issue was an opening for New York City voters who are leaning against Mamdani.“It won’t move the numbers for younger people who are the base of his support, but the argument could benefit both Cuomo and Adams because it makes Mamdani look like a hypocrite,” he said.Mamdani, meanwhile, has launched a “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour of the city, shifting his focus to what many Democratic New Yorkers could agree is the common enemy, the Republican US president.Trump has threatened to intervene in New York – a threat made vivid with the national guard now patrolling Washington DC’s streets – if Mamdani is elected, and Cuomo posted that that was likely to happen and that “Trump will flatten him like a pancake”.Sheinkopf said Mamdani’s switch to attacking Trump was a wise political strategy because it deflects from his lack of governing experience. “He can be beaten but the problem is will any of these guys be able to figure it out? Cuomo’s numbers have to be much lower for Adams to win, and Adams has to pick up momentum.“The only way he [Mamdani] can get the Black vote back is offer a mea culpa that he made some mistakes early on but argue that crime is down, education and job numbers are up, tourist numbers are great, but what I need is more time to make sure 85,000 new housing units already budgeted for come through,” Sheinkopf says.Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, a state assembly Democrat whose district includes much of eastern Brooklyn, is among moderates who are coming aroundto the leftwinger and attended a Mamdani-led anti-Trump meeting on Tuesday.“Democrats, both moderate and progressive, are uniting around urgent issues like affordability, housing, and protecting our democracy,” Hermelyn said. More

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    Trump’s Washington DC takeover is straight out of a fascist playbook| Moustafa Bayoumi

    A key chapter in the fascist playbook has always been to convince the public that it is living in such a state of mortal danger and unbridled chaos that the only chance of survival is to cede individual rights to the determined will of the Dear Leader. That’s why fascist leaders have constantly demanded that their populations venerate all violence performed in the service of the state and revere the apparatuses of state violence, such as police forces and the military. In this scenario, state violence is not only necessary for the nation’s survival. State violence is understood as even beautiful, something the public can and must believe in.Buying into state violence this way produces something historian Robert Paxton has called a “mobilizing passion”. In his book The Anatomy of Fascism, Paxton described how “the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will” is produced and then mobilized by fascists by creating “a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of traditional solutions”. In other words, there’s always a grave, existential threat lurking around every corner, and only fascist violence can restore order to a lawless world. To the fascist, as Umberto Eco once put it, “life is a permanent war”.Enter Donald Trump. Whether it’s an existential threat of “wokeness” run amok in American universities, or the extraordinary danger of unauthorized immigrants picking our vegetables, Trump is prepared to battle everyone and everything, including his own windmills, to restore the country to some illusory past glory that we are all supposed to believe in, and be willing to sacrifice ourselves for.But the sad truth is that many, if not most, of Trump’s justifications for his policies, are unsurprisingly based on bald-faced lies or gross exaggerations simply to further his pursuit of absolute power. Yet it doesn’t seem to matter. With each new announcement, Trump continues to prove how excellent he is at crafting the illusion of problems where there basically are none and leading his followers down an often-violent path of retribution. (Remember January 6, DC’s most violent day in recent history?) By doing so, he seeks to constantly expand his authority while also deflecting from all the substantial problems that are staring him in the face. And these problems are not insignificant. Think of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal or the continuation of global conflicts that he promised months ago he would uniquely be able to end.The federal takeover of the Washington DC police department, announced with loud fanfare by Trump on Monday, is the latest example of this phenomenon. About 800 national guard troops will be deployed in the nation’s capital because, according to the president, “our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.”This does sound rather frightening. Fortunately, it’s not true. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter.First, the facts. Crime in DC is at historic lows. “Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years,” the justice department announced earlier this year. And crime numbers for 2025 are even better, substantially lower than 2024. Violent crime in 2025 is down 26% compared with 2024.The DC council understands this. The council responded to Trump’s announcement with an angry joint statement: “This is a manufactured intrusion on local authority. Violent crime in the District is at the lowest rates we’ve seen in 30 years. Federalizing the DC police is unwarranted because there is no Federal emergency. Further, the National Guard has no public safety training or knowledge of local laws. The Guard’s role does not include investigating or solving crimes in the District. Calling out the National Guard is an unnecessary deployment with no real mission.”Such facts ought to matter. So why don’t they to Trump?Facts don’t matter for Trump because facts have always operated as nothing more than an inconvenience for him. Just ask Erika McEntarfer, former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She was recently fired by Trump after accurately reporting employment statistics, and those specific numbers contradicted Trump and his policies. But with every new policy enacted by this administration, Trump’s fact-free worldview becomes a lot more worrisome.That’s true for this policy, too. Owing to its historically limited autonomy, the District of Columbia is governed differently than other parts of the county. And under the Home Rule Act of 1973,the federal government can take over its policing functions for a period of 30 days. Congress would probably then have to extend that time limit if needed. But to think that Trump is focused on federal policing authority solely to deploy it to Washington DC is to also believe that Donald Trump has never seen a spray tan machine.Here is Trump: “We have other cities also that are bad, very bad,” he said at his press conference. “You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York is a problem. And then you have of course Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that any more, they’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further. We’re starting very strongly with DC.”Now, here are the facts. In Chicago, homicides are down 33% in 2025. Los Angeles had the “lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years” in 2025. New York’s police department is reporting that “from January 2025 through May 2025, New York City experienced the lowest number of shootings and murders in recorded history.” The Baltimore police department has stated that 2025 “continues to see double-digit reductions in gun violence, including a 22% decrease in homicides”. And the Oakland police department reported last week “that overall crime in Oakland has dropped by 28% in the first six months of 2025” including a 24% decrease in homicides.Donald Trump wants to take over all forms of law enforcement in the United States, from local policing to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency that is now pumped up on budgetary steroids. (Under Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill, Ice will now expand to become the largest federal law enforcement agency in US history, with a bigger budget than most nations’ militaries.) Trump’s desire to control all forms of state power, and to expand them beyond belief, is a move straight out of the fascist playbook. And it’s completely dependent on the production of both extraordinary fear and blatant lies.The first way of fighting such an obvious power grab is not to give in to the fear and not to believe the lies. But what is less understood about Trump is that he doesn’t even care if we believe his lies. Like all such leaders, what Trump really wants is just that we no longer believe in the truth. The difference between not believing the lies and believing in the truth may sound slight, but it’s exactly in that distinction where some people are allowed to live and others must die. It’s where democracy is found or democracy is lost. And it’s why holding on to the very concept of truth ultimately matters so much more than just arguing over the lies.

    Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York More

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    The Trump administration has decided coal is female – here’s why | Arwa Mahdawi

    Have you ever tossed and turned at night wondering what the correct pronouns are for a lump of coal? No, me neither. However, it seems someone at the US Department of Energy has devoted a few spare brain cells to this matter and decided that coal is a she/her.Co-opting a phrase adopted by the LGBTQ+ community, the official energy department X account tweeted on 31 July: “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment,” alongside a sparkling picture of coal. This comes as the Trump administration devotes considerable energy to making fossil fuels great again. The president has signed numerous executive orders aimed at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” and reversed Biden-era pollution regulations on coal-fired power plants. These plants, according to a 2023 report, killed at least 460,000 Americans over the past two decades. Deaths declined when the environmental regulations that Donald Trump is so scornful of were put in place.Why is the Trump administration, which seems to think women are objects, so keen on personifying coal? Is it for poetic effect? Or are they trying to sanitise the deadly impact of coal pollution and associate it with mother nature? I suspect the second motive. Ships, for example, have traditionally been referred to as “she”, possibly because sailors saw them as a maternal protector. Countries can also be classified as female – particularly when a man thinks their violent actions need to be defended. In 2023, shortly after the 7 October attacks, at a time when Gaza was being bombed and blockaded by Israel, Keir Starmer said Israel had “the right to defend herself”.Then again, sometimes the short answer to why things are unnecessarily gendered is simply “lazy sexism”. For a long time, Atlantic hurricanes were given only female names. When feminists started to challenge this in the 1980s, some people argued that storms would be taken seriously only if they evoked female fury. Years after meteorologists finally changed the policy, a 1986 Washington Post editorial lamented: “Somehow many of the male names don’t convey either the romance or the urgency that circumstances might warrant.” This has been much debated and it’s not clear whether gendering a storm makes any difference to public safety. As for the weird social media post gendering coal? It feels like a smokescreen to get people chattering online as the world burns. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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    ‘Distracting the public’: group of health professionals call for RFK Jr to be removed

    A grassroots organization of health professionals have released a report outlining major health challenges in the US and calling for the removal of Robert F Kennedy Jr from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).The report from Defend Public Health, a new organization of about 3,000 health professionals and allies, is an attempt to get ahead of misinformation and lack of information from health officials.In an effort to keep making progress in public health, Defend Public Health’s report was slated to coincide with that of the anticipated second US report to “make America healthy again” (Maha). The first Maha report was released in May, and a second report was expected this week – but amid turmoil at the health agencies, it has reportedly been delayed for several weeks.“The Maha report is essentially a distraction from the real causes of poor health,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, professor emerita at the University of Arizona and a founding member of Defend Public Health.“This administration does not want to address things like poverty and education and access to healthcare. Instead, they’re distracting the public with information on solutions to problems that don’t actually exist. When the foundation of your policy is not evidence-based, it will collapse.”The Defend Public Health report diverges from the previous Maha focus on issues such as processed foods and environmental chemicals, but it covers familiar ground in public health.The group highlights the importance of food safety, security and access to food, including through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), and improved opportunities for physical activity.They seek to ensure equitable access to vaccines; expand access to healthcare, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare access; and build strategies for clean air.The report also recommends fully funding scientific research and public health systems; combatting scientific misinformation, including from the US government; and strengthening pandemic preparedness. They call for reductions in gun violence, now the number one cause of death for children.And their last recommendation is to remove Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), from office, calling his removal “the single most important step toward improving the health of Americans”.The recommendations are exactly what the US needs to address to become healthier, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA). If you “look at the things that actually kill people, from the 10 leading causes of death, that is indeed the right list”.The US spends twice as much on healthcare as the next industrialized country, despite having poorer health outcomes, Benjamin pointed out.“The fracturing of our healthcare system undermines the accessibility of healthcare,” Benjamin said before noting that the US also spends less than other countries on the social determinants of health and social supports, and invests less in primary care and prevention.Such gaps are getting worse under the second Trump administration, with huge cuts to Medicaid, affordable housing, and nutrition programs like Snap.“If they’re serious about making America healthy again, I would suggest that we first begin by feeding children,” Jacobs said. “When, for example, RFK Jr is talking about food dyes, I don’t think that that is anywhere near as important as the fact that 13 million children in the United States do not know where their next meal is coming from.”Scientific misinformation is an “existential threat” to Americans, and the US government is a “major source” of misinformation and disinformation now, Jacobs said.The first Maha report “contains misinformation and uses references that don’t even exist”, she noted. The Defend Public Health report has a tongue-in-cheek note that it was “created by real human experts relying on real rigorous data”.Jacobs recommended working with social media companies, “one of the biggest amplifiers of misinformation”, to address the spread of harmful information. Educating children on how to evaluate the quality and accuracy of information is also important, she said.But one of the biggest purveyors of health misinformation is Kennedy himself.“Everything that he is doing is horrifying,” Jacobs said. “There is a saying in public health, ‘saving lives a million at a time’, and he is doing the opposite of that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe called him a “genuine threat” who is “devastating” public health.“He has no knowledge, training or experience in any type of science. He’s never done an experiment, he’s never written a paper, he’s never gotten a grant to study anything. He has no understanding of the underlying causes of poor health in the United States,” Jacobs said.Defend Public Health launched in November, after Trump’s re-election because, as Jacobs said, “it was very clear to us that public health specifically was going to be under attack.”“We knew that it was going to be a tough fight. I don’t think that any of us knew how bad this was going to get, how quickly. But we are doing everything in our power to support our fellow researchers, public health workers, anybody that we can, and also continue to get accurate information out to the public,” Jacobs said.The group joins other established health organizations as well as other newcomers like the Vaccine Integrity Project to serve as reliable sources of information.There’s a long history of groups like these providing outside perspectives on official recommendations, Benjamin said. But the federal government is uniquely positioned to speak to the health of all Americans.“Pediatricians certainly have the nation’s trust around vaccines for kids, but there’s a big debate about at what point does a kid become an adolescent, become an adult? At what point do they go into the adult health system?” he said.That creates confusion around which advice a patient should follow. The same may be true of a patient who becomes pregnant, or someone who may fall under the purview of multiple health organizations. It’s not always easy to know who belongs in which group.“We have to be careful that each of these private sector organizations align our recommendations, so that we don’t further confuse the public,” Benjamin said.Yet, Benjamin continued, “as the federal government withdraws in its responsibility to protect the public, groups like ours will become more influential in filling that void until we can get the federal government again to step up into that place as a trusted advisor.”Benjamin and Jacobs – and other experts in these groups – hope that the federal government will once again become a source of reliable information.“We really wanted to start building a framework so that we’re ready when we have the opportunity to start putting some of our policy recommendations in place,” Jacobs said.“There is just rampant chaos right now around public health and science related to this administration, and we have got to stand firm and keep bringing the conversation back to the actual causes of poor health among Americans. I can’t control what the government is going to decide to do. What we can do is continue to provide accurate information to the public.” More

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    National guard arrives in Washington DC – in pictures

    A Humvee vehicle leaves the Anacostia Park Police Field Office. Tuesday’s arrests included Tuesday’s arrests related to homicide, firearms offences, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, fare evasion, lewd acts and stalking, according to the White House. ‘A total of six illegal handguns were seized off of District of Columbia’s streets as part of last night’s effort.’

    Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters More

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    Newsom says California will draw new electoral maps after Trump ‘missed’ deadline

    California governor Gavin Newsom says the state will draw new electoral maps after Donald Trump “missed” a deadline on Tuesday night in an ongoing redistricting battle between Democratic and Republican states.“DONALD ‘TACO’ TRUMP, AS MANY CALL HIM, ‘MISSED’ THE DEADLINE!!!”, Newsom’s office wrote on social media. “CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE ‘BEAUTIFUL MAPS,’ THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!)”.“BIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM — YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR — THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR ‘MAGA.’ THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GN,” reads the post.The post follows a series of snarky, all-caps tweets meant to mimic Trump’s social media writing style.Newsom was mocking Trump’s moniker, “Taco”, short for “Trump always chickens out”, prompted by his flip-flopping deadlines.Several states have waded into the redistricting wars, where Newsom and other Democratic state leaders had threatened to draw retaliatory maps if Texas were to move ahead with its redistricting scheme.Texas Democrats had left the state to stop Republicans from passing a new congressional map. The Texas senate passed the new congressional map on Tuesday, but it will not earn full approval from the legislature because of the quorum-break. Lawmakers are set to adjourn on Friday and Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately convene a new special session.In a letter sent to Trump on Monday, Newsom said he would prefer to leave the matter of congressional map-making to independent commissions, not partisan legislative bodies and emphasized that he would “happily” stand down if other states abandoned their redistricting effort. But, Newsom said: “California cannot stand idly by as this power grab unfolds.”Newsom’s office summarized the letter Monday in a mocking social media post to Trump: “DONALD TRUMP, IF YOU DO NOT STAND DOWN, WE WILL BE FORCED TO LEAD AN EFFORT TO REDRAW THE MAPS IN CA TO OFFSET THE RIGGING OF MAPS IN RED STATES. BUT IF THE OTHER STATES CALL OFF THEIR REDISTRICTING EFFORTS, WE WILL DO THE SAME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!”At a press conference with several quorum-breaking Texas lawmakers, as well as California’s legislative leaders, Newsom outlined his plan to ask voters to override the existing congressional maps drawn by an independent commission and accept a new proposal to create five more Democratic-leaning seats. The governor expressed confidence that voters would approve the plan and said the state legislature would act in time to get the measure on the ballot this November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has defended the Texas plan, arguing that he is “entitled to five more seats” because he won the state’s popular vote in the 2024 presidential election. The argument, however, is flawed – a popular vote win does not necessarily mean a president’s party is awarded more congressional seats.Despite Newsom’s appeal, the White House is seeking to enlist other red states in the redistricting clash. Last week, vice-president JD Vance traveled to Indiana, where he met with state Republican leaders to lobby them on the effort. Republicans have also targeted Ohio and Missouri.Lauren Gambino contributed reporting More

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    Texas Senate passes Republican-drawn gerrymandered map as House Democrats continue to deny quorum – live updates

    The Texas Sentate has passed a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.The map passed 19-2 along party lines. Nine Senate Democrats left the floor in solidarity with their House colleagues – who broke quorum again earlier today in protest of the map. The legislation can’t advance without the absent Democrats in the lower chamber.Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.“I’ll call special after special until the Texas first agenda is passed,” Abbott said in a post on X.The Trump administration sanctioned an armed group accused of illegally trading minerals in eastern Congo, as Washington seeks to lead peace efforts in the region while securing US access to its mineral resources.A senior US government official told the AP that the state and treasury departments are targeting the Codeco armed group, which controlled the key coltan mining site of Rubaya from 2022 until early 2024.“During this period, Codeco generated revenue by overseeing mining operations, collecting illegal fees and taxes for miners and engaging in mineral smuggling. It also imposed forced labor and executed civilians in mining areas under its control,” the official said.The sanctions also target the Congolese mining company CDMC, accused of selling minerals sourced and smuggled from mines near Rubaya, as well as two Hong Kong exporters, East Rise and Star Dragon, that purchased minerals from the area.Mexico has transferred a group of imprisoned cartel members to the United States, amid growing pressure from the Trump administration to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organizations, the Wall Street Journal reported.The group, sent on Tuesday, was roughly the same size as the 29 prisoners transferred in February.WSJ reports:
    The group sent Tuesday included members of top criminal organizations facing drug charges in the US who are being sent to locations including Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, San Diego and New York, one of the people said.
    Terry Cole, the Drug Enforcement Administration chief overseeing the federal takeover of DC police, said in an interview that, starting tonight, federal agents will be “embedded with the Metropolitan police department”.“You will see federal agents working hand in hand on patrol with the Metropolitan Police Department, you will also see an increase of activity, patrol activity in certain sectors to go after the violent criminal offenders that are the drivers of this crime,” Cole said in an interview with Fox News.Earlier today, Texas Senate Democrats staged a walkout in protest of the chamber’s proposed congressional redistricting map, which was moving forward to the Texas House.Despite the senators’ absence, the Republican-controlled Senate approved the map in a 19-2 vote. But it cannot win final approval while the quorum is broken. Texas House Democrats have been out of state for weeks to block Republican lawmakers from conducting business.Senate Democrats are challenging governor Greg Abbott’s decision to prioritize redistricting over urgent flood relief for the state’s affected communities.“This special session is about one thing: flood relief,” said Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez. “Greg Abbott tried to sneak in a rigged mid-decade redistricting beneath voters’ noses. Let’s be clear, the governor can provide this relief anytime he wants. But Abbott is holding it hostage so that he has an excuse to do Trump’s bidding.”“Texas has a long tradition of independence. But when Donald Trump tells Greg Abbott to roll over and fetch him five seats, he does it like a good lapdog,” Gutierrez added. “This governor has failed to uphold Texas values, defend the people of Texas, or make the lives of its citizens better in any meaningful way.”Democratic senators Judith Zaffirini and Chuy Hinojosa did not participate in today’s walkout and stayed in the chamber, according to the Dallas Morning News.Democratic representative Adam Smith, of the state of Washington, said it is “pretty clear” President Trump “wants his own domestic police force” after the president seized control of DC’s Metropolitan police department.“Look, this president is trampling on basic freedoms of the American people to a degree we, I don’t think we’ve ever seen,” Smith said on CNN. “You see that with what the ICE agents are doing, in terms of picking people up off the streets with no evidence, no due process, locking people up.”“This is happening all across the country,” Smith added. “Look, it’s pretty clear the president wants his own domestic police force, and step by step, he’s trying to create it, and we should be deeply alarmed by that, regardless of how you feel about crime in Washington DC, or any other city.”

    National guard troops began to arrive at their headquarters in Washington DC on Tuesday, after Donald Trump announced yesterday that he was deploying them to the nation’s capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low. Leading Democrats have called the move a “distraction” from the president’s economic agenda and the plague of the Epstein files.

    Earlier, the DC mayor Muriel Bowser met with attorney general Pam Bondi, after saying that her office intends to comply with federal law enforcement, as Bondi will now oversee the DC police for the next 30 days. On social media, Bondi described the meeting as “productive”, saying the pair agreed there is “nothing more important” than keeping residents and tourists “safe from deadly crime”.

    Meanwhile in the White House briefing room today, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s DC police takeover was “just the beginning”, saying that the massive surge in law enforcement resulted in 23 arrests yesterday. She added that if individuals living in homeless encampments refuse to accept places in shelters or addiction facilities they would be subject to fines or jail time. Leavitt added that the administration is still considering moving the homeless population out of the city.

    Beyond Washington, the press secretary characterised Friday’s upcoming meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin as a “listening exercise” for the president, confirming that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not be in attendance, but the president has hopes for a trilateral meeting in the future.

    For his part, Zelenskyy said today that Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire, because Moscow would use it as a springboard to start a future war. Speaking to journalists a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.

    Closer to home, the Texas Sentate approved a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. But since House Democrats continue to break quorum, the legislation isn’t going anywhere. Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.

    When it comes to the economy, the latest inflation data released today showed that the Consumer Price Index held steady at 2.7 percent. “Core” inflation – which leaves out volatile goods like food and energy to track how prices are increasing – rose by 0.3 percent. This marks a 3.1 percent increase over the course of a year – and the highest level in five months.

    In response, Donald Trump wasted no time calling out Jerome Powell on social media, continuing his long-running campaign against the chair of the Federal Reserve. “The damage he has done by always being Too Late is incalculable,” the president wrote. He also said that he was considering allowing a lawsuit – focused on Powell’s renovation of the fed’s headquarters– to proceed.
    The New York Times is reporting that investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is “at least in part” responsible for a recent hack of the computer system of the federal court system.According to the Times’s sources, this breach includes highly sensitive records that could contain information with names and details of people charged with national security crimes.The Times also reports that it’s not immediately clear what specific Russian entity might be responsible for the hack.Just a quick post here to sum up the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which breaks down the financial impact of Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill that became law last month.The topline: the CBO estimates that the poorest 10% of Americans can expect to lose around $1200 per year due to the restrictions and cut backs in the legislation – namely when it comes to Medicaid and Snap benefits. By contrast, the richest 10% of Americans can expect to gain around $13,600 each year, due to the extension of the president’s 2017 tax cuts.In response to Congressional Democratic leadership’s request for analysis on the distribution of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a letter from the CBO’s director noted that while, on average, American households can expect to see an increase in resources, this will not be evenly distributed.He writes:
    Resources will decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources will increase for households in the middle and toward the top of the income distribution.
    The Trump administration is evidently extending its control of cultural representation at the Smithsonian, the world’s largest museum and research complex.In a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal, the White House told the Smithsonian that it plans a wide review of exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations in 2026.The letter to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, from Trump administration officials said the White House wants the museums’ program to reflect “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” in keeping with an executive order issued in March that ordered the elimination of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums.Donald Trump’s order from March, titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, said the president “aims to ensure that the Smithsonian is an institution that sparks children’s imagination, celebrates American history and ingenuity, serves as a symbol to the world of American greatness, and makes America proud”.But Monday’s letter to the institution, according to the Journal, places the institution under curatorial scrutiny ranging from public-facing exhibition text and online content to internal curatorial processes, exhibition planning, the use of collections and artist grants.Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war.The Ukrainian president said he did not believe that Donald Trump supported Russia’s demands, and he expressed hope the US leader would act as an honest mediator when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.He added there was no sign that Russia was preparing to implement a ceasefire, as reports emerged that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas, advancing about six miles in three days. Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline.Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.Read more on the lead-up to both meetings hereThe Texas Sentate has passed a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.The map passed 19-2 along party lines. Nine Senate Democrats left the floor in solidarity with their House colleagues – who broke quorum again earlier today in protest of the map. The legislation can’t advance without the absent Democrats in the lower chamber.Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.“I’ll call special after special until the Texas first agenda is passed,” Abbott said in a post on X.The White House heralded today’s Consumer Price Index report as an clear picture of inflation remaining stable.But another notable exchange in the press briefing was a reporter’s question about why the public should trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation data report, given the administration undermining the jobs data released earlier this month. This led to the firing of former commissioner Erika McEntarfer, and yesterday’s announcement that the president is nominating EJ Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to replace her. Antoni is a longtime critic of the BLS.“The jobs data has had massive revisions,” Leavitt said, referring to the routine practice of issuing revisions to provide a more accurate picture of data. “We want to ensure that all of the data, the inflation data, the jobs data, any data point that is coming out of the BLS, is trustworthy and is accurate”.When asked in today’s press briefing, the White House offered little clarity on administration’s view of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza City takeover.
    This is, of course, an incredibly complex and complicated situation. The administration has made our goal clear. We want to see this conflict end. We want to see the hostages released…the President and his national security team has given extensive effort and time in doing that. More