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      Florida crosswalk wars take DeSantis’s ‘war on woke’ to street level

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      A battalion of transportation workers armed with cans of black paint has been deployed to open a new front in Ron DeSantis’s “war on woke”, while young students trying to make their schools safer have joined the LGBTQ+ community as targets of Florida’s Republican governor.The saga began with the state moving in the dead of night to paint over a rainbow-colored crosswalk outside Orlando’s former Pulse nightclub, where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting. The city’s mayor, Buddy Dyer, called the erasure of the memorial to the mostly LGBTQ+ victims “a cruel political act”.Since then, DeSantis’s crosswalk wars have spread across Florida. The governor has ordered the removal of about 400 “non-standard” pieces of street art, even though they all received state approval as a condition of installation. A growing number of municipalities has pledged to fight him.The state’s declared intent, acquiescent to a national directive by the Trump administration last month, is to “keep our transportation facilities free and clear of political ideologies”, Florida’s transport secretary, Jared Perdue, wrote in a post to X.Perdue has also said painted roadways are a safety hazard, despite research showing improved driver behavior and a “significantly improved safety performance” at sites that have art installations.The purge, which has targeted more than just rainbow crosswalks and other street symbols of LGBTQ+ pride street decorations, has reverberated in cities from Tallahassee to Key West.Several municipalities, under threat of losing state funding, have complied. Those include Port St Lucie, which removed hearts painted on a roadway as a memorial to a teenager who died of a heart condition, and Daytona Beach, which painted over checkered flag crosswalks at the city’s famous international speedway.More than a dozen schools in Tampa were also snared, and will lose vibrant asphalt artwork designed by students installed as part of the city’s award-winning Crosswalks to Classrooms program. Florida’s department of transportation (FDOT) recognized it as a gold standard of road safety only four years ago.“The innovative and collaborative efforts to combine public art and engineering treatments to improve school safety was truly inspiring,” a department official said at the time.In Orlando, bicycle lanes painted in May at an elementary school, designed by fourth-graders who won a FDOT art contest, must also go.DeSantis, at a press conference in Tampa, was unrepentant. He suggested students use his street art directive outlawing “social, political or ideological messages” as a civics lesson.“What I would tell kids is we have a representative system of government. People elect their representatives. They’re able to enact the legislation with the governor’s signature and then when that happens, obviously people will conform their conduct accordingly,” he said.Other cities are digging in their heels, setting up a likely legal fight with the DeSantis administration. A special meeting of the Fort Lauderdale commission on Wednesday voted to file an administrative appeal against a removal order on four pieces of pride-themed street art in the city, including a large rainbow flag.“Tonight, we must stand our ground. We cannot allow ourselves to be bullied into submission and to allow others to dictate what we should do in our own communities,” Dean Trantalis, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, said. Trantalis has previously called the governor’s crosswalk directive an act of “irrational vengeance” on the LGBTQ+ community.Commissioners also voted to hire the same firm of outside attorneys contracted by officials in Key West and Miami Beach, two other cities known for inclusivity, to help in the legal fight. Delray Beach commissioners voted earlier this month to defy the state and retain its giant pride streetscape. An administrative hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.View image in fullscreenAnna Eskamani, a Democratic state representative for Orlando, noted DeSantis’s long history of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation – including the “don’t say gay” bill and efforts to ban or restrict gender-affirming healthcare – and saw deeper menace in the crosswalk orders.“It’s not just, ‘I despise queer people,’ which is clearly a part of the MO here, it’s bigger than that,” she said.“It’s trying to control what local governments can and can’t do and an effort to essentially target, harass, bully and potentially even eliminate them. Overwhelmingly, cities that have these crosswalks do not support DeSantis and didn’t vote for him. These are the same municipalities that are now getting Doge, the same municipalities where DeSantis is trying to take away property taxes, which means no revenue and the consolidation and elimination of local governments.“It’s worth connecting the dots. It’s not as simplistic as another culture war on LGBTQ+ people.”Charlie Crist, the former Republican Florida governor who switched parties to become a Democratic congressman, and challenged DeSantis for governor in 2022, said it was an “absurd and embarrassing” effort to silence residents.“It’s hard to understand. We have a right to free speech in this country, and these murals in our cities and our communities reflect the values of those communities and cities,” he said.“The notion that the state government would want to suppress that right of free speech is bizarre.”Crist said he also saw the move as an extension of DeSantis’s targeting of minority groups: “It’s hard to draw a different conclusion, frankly, and I don’t understand it. I believe in the golden rule to do unto others as you would have done unto you, and I don’t think DeSantis knows what that is. It’s disappointing.”Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, predicted the push to remove pride street art would backfire.“DeSantis may paint over rainbows and art, but people are answering with defiance, chalking sidewalks, raising flags, covering cars with stickers, and businesses painting their parking lots with rainbows. These acts declare we are not intimidated and we will not be erased,” she said in a statement.“This isn’t about safety. It’s a cowardly abuse of power and the latest in his campaign to ban books, whitewash history, and attack LGBTQ people. Cities must push back to protect the values that make them welcoming places to live, work, and visit.” More

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      Has Trump succeeded in normalising American autocracy?

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      When it comes to the rise of autocracy in America, Justice Potter Stewart’s famous pronouncement on pornography might be particularly appropriate at the moment: “I know it when I see it.”The cult of personality was apparent as Donald Trump’s cabinet convened on Wednesday in a marathon session that could have embarrassed even a seasoned strongman, providing for three hours and 17 minutes of fawning television coverage.There was Steve Witkoff, the president’s top envoy and negotiator, standing up in the increasingly gilded Cabinet Room, offering praise that could have made even Vladimir Putin blush. “There’s only one thing I wish for – that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about,” he said to applause from secretaries of state, defense and other top cabinet officials.Or was it Stephen Miller on Fox News in effect criminalising the opposition to Trump and calling Chicago a “killing field” despite controverting facts. “The Democrat party is not a political party, it is a domestic extremist organisation,” he said in a strident tone, claiming that the party was devoted “exclusively to the defence of hardened criminals, gangbangers and illegal alien killers and terrorists”.Was it the president calling, on social media, for the arrest of a wealthy financier and his son for their support for civil society? “George Soros, and his wonderful Radical Left son, should be charged with RICO because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America,” he wrote on Truth Social.Or perhaps it was the revocation of Secret Service protection for his electoral rival Kamala Harris, or the FBI raid on the home of John Bolton, his former national security adviser, who has become an outspoken critic of the president’s national security agenda. Or was it in the commonplace nature of a raid outside an elementary school in Mt Pleasant in Washington DC, where police staked out a school with a large Spanish-speaking population in what became just another immigration raid in America.Some activists and observers have sounded the alarm: authoritarianism of the kind that Americans are used to condemning abroad has become increasingly normal in the United States.Don Moynihan, a political scientist and professor at the University of Michigan, wrote this week that “today, America is a competitive authoritarian system, with a rapidly increasing emphasis on the authoritarian part.”The checklist to consolidate power, he wrote, includes efforts to control the government bureaucracy, the military, internal security, the legal system, civil society, higher education, the media and elections. The pursuit of those aims had been “systematic”, he wrote.Abdelrahman ElGendy has watched this process with a feeling of grim recognition. ElGendy spent six years in prison in his native Egypt on political charges, but fled to the US in order to work on a memoir he is set to release next year.In April, however, he packed his things and left the US following the detention of the Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. ElGendy’s lawyers warned him that he could face a similar fate after his personal details were posted on a website used to target opponents of Israel’s war in Gaza.Since then, he has watched from abroad as the situation has worsened.“I haven’t second-guessed leaving the US. In fact I feel very grateful that I made the choice that I did before things got even worse,” he said. “I left Egypt to escape political persecution … The reason I left the US is because I started to recognize those same patterns forming around me. And since leaving it’s only gone downhill.”View image in fullscreenWhen Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) began carrying out large-scale raids and he was identified online as a potential target, he said he found himself once again waiting to be taken away at any moment.“I don’t think political incarceration is the most important characteristic of authoritarianism, it’s more the constant threat of it that matters most,” he said. “What really sustains authoritarianism is that quiet knowledge that the prison door is always within reach … that shadow is what shapes behavior.”From Russia to Turkey, and Hungary to El Salvador, activists, observers and political scientists have watched the quick consolidation of power by the Trump administration as it has followed a familiar pattern of autocratic rollout.Washington has found common cause with some of the world’s harshest authoritarian regimes such Russia and El Salvador. This week, the US deported nearly 50 Russians, according to activists, including some who probably requested political asylum in the United States. Hundreds of migrants and even citizens have been deported to prisons in El Salvador.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Sometimes I almost feel it’s like ‘I told you so,’” said Noah Bullock, the chief executive of Cristosal, a leading human rights group in El Salvador which was forced to leave the country last month after 25 years of documenting abuses of power.“With the Ice crackdown and the creation of this massive law enforcement agency that only obeys the president – there are no good historical references where that works out well.”“One of the things that I see happening that hits me really close is when these security or police forces begin to look at the whole population as enemies,” he added, comparing it to El Salvador where they had been “trained to see the population as a threat”.The winner-take-all dynamics of the Trump administration, which has claimed a historic mandate despite winning among the thinnest majorities in a generation, have made this a particularly fraught moment. Along with the federal takeover of police forces, the other commonly cited danger is the Republican gerrymandering effort in Texas and resulting fightback in California, as well as other efforts to diminish voter turnout ahead of the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential elections.Some activists insist it is not too late to turn back. Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, and Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, wrote this week that “We Can Stop the Rise of American Autocracy”.Citing Hungary and Venezuela as examples, they wrote that “we cannot be lulled into believing that this is like anything we’ve seen before and can therefore be solved by simply waiting for the midterm elections. The antidote to Trump’s American breed of autocracy is understanding the severity of the threat at hand.”But others see the trend toward authoritarianism as merely an acceleration of the direction of US politics even before Trump.“That assumes that the United States was a functioning healthy democracy that slipped … and that’s just not the case in my opinion,” said ElGendy.“When a democracy is designed with this capacity for authoritarianism you’re never more than one election away from its reappearance. That’s not an accident, that’s a design flaw.” More

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      Publications aimed at LGBTQ+ audiences face discrimination from advertisers, editors warn

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      Publications aimed at LGBTQ+ and other diverse audiences are facing “good old-fashioned discrimination” as advertisers avoid them after political attacks on diversity and inclusion campaigns, editors have said.Senior figures at publications aimed at the gay community and other minority groups said a previous “gold rush” to work with such titles was over.There has been a backlash in the US over corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the past 18 months, which has led to some big names rolling back their plans.Tag Warner, the chief executive of Gay Times, said his publication, which had been growing digitally in the US, had lost 80% of its advertisers in the past year. It has also lost in excess of £5m in expected advertiser revenue.Warner, who has led the outlet since 2019, said his title’s growth had been accompanied by an enthusiasm from brands to embrace LGBTQ+ audiences. He blames an anti-DEI drive in the US for the dramatic shift.“I know that media and marketing is also going through a challenging year anyway, but when we’re thinking about other organisations that don’t talk to diverse themes, they’re not nearly as impacted as we are,” he said. “This is just good old-fashioned discrimination. Because discrimination doesn’t have to make business sense. Discrimination doesn’t have to be logical. Discrimination is discrimination.“We’re really experiencing the impact of what happens when voices that are pressuring organisations to give in to less inclusive perspectives start winning. Then it creates this massive behavioural shift in brands and organisations.”Nafisa Bakkar, the co-founder of Amaliah, a publication aimed at “amplifying the voices of Muslim women”, said there had been a “change in mood” among brands and advertisers. “There was this DNI [diversity and inclusion] gold rush,” she said. “It is, I would say, well and truly over.“We work with a lot of UK advertisers, but I would say that the US has a lot more emphasis on what they would call ‘brand safety’, which I think is a code word for ‘we don’t want to rock the boat’. I would say there is a lot more focus on this element.”Ibrahim Kamara, the founder of the youth platform GUAP, which has a large black and ethnically diverse audience, said he had detected a “relative difference” from 2020 in approaches from brands.He and others cited the economic pressures on advertisers generally in recent years. However, he said the “hype and the PR around wanting to support and connect with diverse audiences” had also subsided.“The thing that most people within these kind of spaces can probably agree on is that the energy and the PR is very different now,” he said. “It was almost a badge of honour to be able to say that you’re supporting certain communities. Now, I’ve seen that lots of the diversity and inclusion people that were hired around that period have probably lost their jobs. It doesn’t have the same PR effect any more.”Warner said the anti-DEI impact pre-dated the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Figures such as the conservative pundit Robby Starbuck have been engaged in a long-running anti-DEI campaign, pressuring firms to drop their diversity efforts. However, Warner said Trump’s arrival “gave everyone, I think, permission to be honest about it”.Not all publications in the sector have been hit in the same way as Gay Times. Companies with business models less reliant on US advertising, as well as some big players with long-established relationships, said they had managed to negotiate the changing political environment.“Brands are nervous, that’s for sure, or careful – or a combination of both,” said Darren Styles, the managing director of Stream Publishing, which publishes Attitude magazine. “They’re aware it can be a lightning rod for a vocal minority. But our experience is that most people are holding their ground, if not doubling down.”Styles also said he was not complacent, however, given the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party in the UK and its lack of historical support for the LGBTQ+ community.“I’m not incautious about the future,” he said. “Who knows what next year will bring, because that narrative is not going away. Obviously, there’s the rise of Reform in the polls.“[Farage] is quite clearly not an ally to our community and he’s expressed disdain in the past at the awards we’ve given out to people in the trans community. So it is a worry as political momentum gains around there. But I think broadly, consumers in the UK are a bit more capable of thinking for themselves.”Mark Berryhill, the chief executive of equalpride, which publishes prominent US titles like Out and The Advocate, said some brands and agencies “may have been a little bit more cautious than they have been in the past”. However, he said it had so far meant deals had taken longer to be completed, in a tough economic climate.He said the political headwinds made it more important to highlight that working with such titles was simply a sound business decision. “We’ve tried to do a better job in this political climate of just selling the importance of our buying power,” he said. “Everybody’s cautious and I don’t think it’s just LGBTQ. I think they’re cautious in general right now with their work with minority owned companies.“The one thing that maybe this whole controversy has helped us with a little bit is to really make brands realise it’s a business decision. It’s not just a charity or something you should do because you feel guilty.“You should do it because it’s the right thing to support LGBTQ journalism. We’re small. We need to get the word out. We have important stories to tell. But it’s also a good business decision. The more we show that side, certain brands will come along.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Backlash in Chicago as mayor defies president’s immigration crackdown

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      Resistance is growing to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, signing an executive order to counter the president’s move.The order prevents the Chicago police department from collaborating with federal authorities on patrols, immigration enforcement, or conducting traffic stops and checkpoints. It also restricts officers from wearing face coverings to hide their identities.Johnson has accused the president of “behaving outside the bounds of the constitution” and of being “reckless and out of control”, while the White House insists the potential flood of federal agents is about “cracking down on crime”.“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.Here are the key stories.Chicago mayor signs executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raidsThe mayor of Chicago has signed an executive order outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.Brandon Johnson pushed back on Saturday against what he called the “out-of-control” Trump administration’s plan to deploy large numbers of federal officers into the country’s third-largest city, which could take place within days.The Chicago police department will be barred from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge, according to the executive order Johnson signed.Read the full storyMore than 500 workers at Voice of America and other broadcasters to be laid offThe agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating jobs for more than 500 employees, a Trump administration official said. The move could ratchet up a months-long legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.Kari Lake, the acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, announced the latest round of job cuts late on Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.Read the full storyBernie Sanders demands RFK Jr step down as health secretaryBernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign after recent chaos across US health agencies.In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”Read the full storySenior Pentagon official had affair with ‘notorious’ astrologer who stalked him, lawsuit saysA senior Pentagon official in the Trump administration had a months-long extramarital affair with a woman claiming to be “the internet’s most notorious astrologer” – and claims in a defamation lawsuit filed in Florida that she cyberstalked him and his wife after they split up.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Still getting up to speed on the latest with Trump’s tariffs? This handy explainer has everything you need to know.

      The Guardian’s Washington correspondent David Smith examines diversity in the Trump administration in this feature entitled: ‘Racist as hell’: Trump’s cabinet is almost all white, and he keeps firing Black officials

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      More than 500 workers at Voice of America and other broadcasters to be laid off

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      The agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating jobs for more than 500 employees, a Trump administration official said. The move could ratchet up a months-long legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.Kari Lake, acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, announced the latest round of job cuts late Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.US district judge Royce Lamberth had ruled separately that the Republican administration had failed to show how it was complying with his orders to restore VOA’s operations. His order Monday gave the administration “one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial” to demonstrate its compliance. He ordered Lake to sit for a deposition by lawyers for agency employees by 15 September.On Thursday, Lamberth said Abramowitz could not be removed without the approval of the majority of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. Firing Abramowitz would be “plainly contrary to law”, according to Lamberth, who was nominated to the bench by Ronald Reagan.Lake posted a statement on social media that said her agency had initiated a reduction in force, or RIF, eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees. She said the agency “will continue to fulfill its statutory mission after this RIF– and will likely improve its ability to function”.“I look forward to taking additional steps in the coming months to improve the functioning of a very broken agency and make sure America’s voice is heard abroad where it matters most,” she wrote.A group of agency employees who sued to block VOA’s elimination said Lake’s move would give their colleagues 30 days until their pay and benefits end.“We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement. “We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that.”They added: “We will continue to fight for what we believe to be our rights under the law.”In June, layoff notices were sent to more than 600 agency employees. Abramowitz was placed on administrative leave along with almost the entire VOA staff. He was told he would be fired effective 31 August.The administration said in a court filing Thursday that it planned to send RIF notices to 486 employees of VOA and 46 other agency employees but intended to retain 158 agency employees and 108 VOA employees. The filing said the global media agency had 137 “active employees” and 62 other employees on administrative leave while VOA had 86 active employees and 512 others on administrative leave.The agency also houses Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Martí, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. The networks, which together reach an estimated 427 million people, date to the cold war and are part of a network of government-funded organizations trying to extend US influence and combat authoritarianism.In March, Abramowitz warned that Trump’s attempts to dismantle the VOA would be a “self-inflicted blow” to American national security, saying: “If America pulls off the playing field and cedes it to our adversaries, then they’re going to be telling the narratives that people around the world are going to be hearing, and that can’t be good for America … They’re going to be hearing an anti-America narrative. We need to fight that with truth.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe added: “The major challenge for the United States in general is this global information war in which countries like China and Russia are essentially really having our lunch. … So, I really feel that we need an organization that is accurate, unbiased, objective, and that tells the truth about America to the rest of the world in the languages that they understand.”This week, Trump also moved to remove union protections from a handful of federal employees, including those from the VOA.In response, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest trade union of public employees, said: “AFSCME members who fulfill the Congressionally mandated mission to broadcast Voice of America around the globe shine the beacon of freedom on the most oppressive of regimes. Now, because they have been fighting to keep Voice of America’s mission alive, their own voice on the job has been stripped from them. AFSCME will fight this illegal action in court.”Earlier this year, foreign staff at US-backed media outlets voiced concerns over their safety following Trump’s shuttering of the global media agencies.Speaking to the Guardian in March, Jaewoo Park, a journalist for Radio Free Asia, said: “We have many co-workers in different services, several of whom came here and sought asylum visas. If their own government knew they worked for RFA [Radio Free Asia] and they went back to their own country, their lives would be at risk.”“Authoritarian governments have praised what Trump is doing right now … In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, there were people who fought for freedom and democracy, and they came to work at RFA. It’s very risky for them. Their lives are in danger if Radio Free Asia doesn’t exist,” he added. More

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      Bernie Sanders demands that RFK Jr step down as health secretary

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      Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign, after recent chaos across US health agencies.In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”“Mr Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office President Trump and Mr Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,” Sanders wrote.Sanders pointed to the White House’s firing of Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as four other top CDC officials who resigned in protest this week after Monarez “refused to act as a rubber stamp” for Kennedy’s “dangerous policies”.“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote.“Against the overwhelming body of evidence within medicine and science, what are secretary Kennedy’s views? … He has absurdly claimed that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’… Who supports secretary Kennedy’s views? Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading ‘experts’ that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.”Sanders went on to add: “The reality is that secretary Kennedy has profited from and built a career on sowing mistrust in vaccines. Now, as head of [the Department of Health and Human Services] he is using his authority to launch a full-blown war on science, on public health and on truth itself.”Pointing to what he described as “our broken health care system”, Sanders said that Kennedy’s repeated attacks against science and vaccines will make it more difficult for Americans to obtain lifesaving vaccines.“Already, the Trump administration has effectively taken away Covid vaccines from many healthy younger adults and kids, unless they fight their way through our broken health care system. This means more doctor’s visits, more bureaucracy and more people paying higher out-of-pocket costs – if they can manage to get a vaccine at all,” he wrote.The senator warned that Kennedy’s next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, which involves a list of recommended vaccines for children to protect them from diseases including measles, chickenpox and polio.“The danger here is that diseases that have been virtually wiped out because of safe and effective vaccines will resurface and cause enormous harm,” Sanders said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn recent days, the Trump administration has faced rare bipartisan pushback following its firing of Monarez, which came amid steep budget cuts to the CDC’s work as well as growing concerns of political interference.Meanwhile, Kennedy has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been lambasted in response by experts and lawmakers alike.Since he assumed leadership over the health department, Kennedy – a longtime anti-vaccine advocate – has fired health agency workers and entertained conspiracy theories. Last week, more than 750 current and former employees at US health agencies signed a letter in which they criticized Kennedy as an “existential threat to public health”.The health agency workers went on to accuse the health secretary of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information”.The letter comes after a deadly shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, when a 30-year-old gunman fired more than 180 rounds into the buildings, killing a police officer before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooter had been struggling with mental health issues and was influenced by misinformation that led him to believe the Covid-19 vaccine was making him sick, according to the gunman’s father. More

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      Chicago mayor to sign executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raids

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      The mayor of Chicago is planning to sign an executive order on Saturday outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to reports.Brandon Johnson will set out guidance for the city’s agencies and law enforcement, CNN reported, “in the midst of escalating threats from the federal government”.Last week, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago be made available to assist with immigration operations, as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.Johnson’s order “affirms” that Chicago police will not “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement”, CNN reported.It also directs city police to wear their official police uniforms, continue to identify themselves, follow body-camera procedures and not wear masks to clearly distinguish themselves from any federal operations, according to a copy of the order.“The deployment of federal military forces in Chicago without the consent of local authorities undermines democratic norms, violates the City’s sovereignty, threatens civil liberties, and risks escalating violence rather than securing the peace,” the order says.It also says city departments should “pursue all available legal and legislative avenues to resist coordinated efforts from the federal government”.On Thursday, Tom Homan, the administration’s “border czar”, said Chicago, along with a number of other cities, would soon be targeted in a planned immigration crackdown.“Operations are ramping up across the country. But you can see a ramp-up across the operations in Chicago, absolutely,” Homan said.In an interview with Fox News, Homan was asked whether he wanted to give a message to Johnson. Homan responded: “Get out of the way, because we’re going to do it.”NBC News reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the border patrol and other agencies will send numerous agents and equipment to Chicago as soon as next week, in an attempt to increase arrests of undocumented immigrants.The planned move comes weeks after the president deployed armed soldiers and military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington DC, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.The Trump administration has been working on plans to send the national guard to Chicago, something Johnson and JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, have said would be an abuse of power.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Friday, Pritzker said such a move would amount to an “invasion”. He told CBS News that, should Trump send in the national guard, voters “should understand that he has other aims, other than fighting crime”.Pritzker said those aims may be to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections”.Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from TDS are trying to make it one. They should listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC.”Reuters contributed reporting More

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      A report tied Iowa’s water pollution to agriculture. Then the money to promote it mysteriously disappeared

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      When a team of scientists embarked two years ago on a $1m landmark study of Iowa’s persistent water-quality problems, they knew that the findings would be important to share. High cancer rates amid the state’s inability to stem the tide of pollutants flowing into rivers and lakes was a growing public concern.But now, after the completed study pointed to agricultural pollution as a significant source of the key US farm state’s water problems, public officials have quietly stripped funding from plans to promote the study findings, according to sources involved in the project.The report, the results of two years of data analysis, has been highly controversial in Iowa because of the large amount of evidence it cites linking water pollution – and resulting human and environmental health risks – to the state’s economically and politically powerful farm industry.Supporters of the report said the agricultural industry and allied public officials have tried to downplay the findings for months, and they fear this move is another impediment to change.‘Zeroed out’When the report was finalized earlier this year, there was a little more than $400,000 left in the budget, with some of that money earmarked for communications and “public awareness” work, travel and other costs associated with promoting the findings, records show.Jennifer Terry, the project lead on the water report, had planned in-person meetings with scientists and community groups to focus on recommendations made in the report.But those funds were recently “zeroed out” with no explanation, according to email communications.Funding for the water report and related public outreach came from Polk county, Iowa’s most populous county and home to the state capital city of Des Moines. County leadership has changed since the report was commissioned.“The intent was that at the conclusion of the report to make sure it was seen widely in a public education effort,” said former Polk county administrator John Norris, who led support for the water report in 2023. “That was a big part of the value of it – that the public learns from it.”Norris, who agreed to leave office earlier this year as part of a legal settlement with the county, said he hoped the county would use some of the money in some way for water-quality work.Frank Marasco, who replaced Norris, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Polk county spokesperson Jon Cahill. Terry also declined to comment.The water report, authored by a team of 16 scientists, focuses on pollution patterns in two “essential” rivers fed from a watershed running from southern Minnesota through the central part of Iowa to Des Moines. The rivers are the primary source of drinking water for roughly 600,000 people and considered important recreational state assets, but they’re commonly laden with harmful contaminants that include phosphorus and nitrogen, bacteria from animal and human waste, pesticides and other chemicals.This summer, nitrate levels in key drinking-water sources were measured in quantities far higher than is allowed under federal safety standards.Much, though not all, of the contamination is tied to agriculture, according to the report. Among multiple recommendations, the report calls for the top US corn-growing state to diversify into production of crops that require fewer chemical inputs, and for limits on the density of livestock.The water report comes alongside growing concerns about the prevalence of cancer across the state. For the last few years, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of cancer in the nation, and is one of only two US states where cancer is increasing. Pesticides and nitrates both are scientifically shown to cause cancers.Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs at the Iowa Environmental Council, said all allocated funds should be fully utilized to educate the public.“People in Polk county and across the state are facing a water crisis but we cannot begin to make progress until all Iowans, including decision-makers, understand the urgency of this moment,” she said.“The importance of accessible, transparent public education and awareness cannot be understated,” Johannsen added. “The current resources available for addressing our water issues are a drop in the bucket, and our elected officials have a responsibility to do everything they can to find a way forward for the sake of the health of the people of this state.”Feds add to worriesThe issues over how to address water-quality problems in Iowa, which has nearly 87,000 farms and ranks first in the nation for corn, pork and egg production, comes as the Trump administration and Republican allies in Congress are moving to dismantle regulations aimed at protecting water quality, including those that work to limit discharges of pesticides and other farm-related chemicals into waterways.One chief concern for environmental advocates is the Permit Act, which is actually a package of more than a dozen bills that would streamline permitting requirements. The legislation would cut protections for many waterways, limit requirements for updated pollution-control measures and exempt pesticide spraying and agricultural runoff from permitting and accountability, according to the advocacy group Beyond Pesticides.If the measures become law, it will make it that much harder for Iowans to clean up their waterways.In another blow to efforts to address the state’s water-quality problems, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reversed a decision made under the Biden administration that found additional areas of four Iowa rivers should be designated as impaired.When waters are classified as impaired, it triggers stricter regulatory measures to limit pollutants entering the waterways and other enhanced measures aimed at reducing the inflow of harmful contaminants.The reversal angered environmental groups across the state as well as the utility providers tasked with cleaning up the water. But farm groups, including the Iowa Farm Bureau, which had opposed the impairment designations, cheered the news.News of the reversal broke the same week that the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, visited Iowa to meet with farmers and others and attend the Iowa state fair to serve as a grill master at the Iowa Pork Producers Association tent.When asked what drove the decision to reverse the impairment decision, an EPA spokesperson said only that the agency had been tracking the levels of nitrates this spring and summer in the waterways and is “ensuring that all of the information and data collected by the cities, universities, and other groups is provided to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for evaluation”.The agency is “not currently aware” of any “exceedances” of nitrates at public water systems “using surface waterbodies in Iowa”, the spokesperson said. The agency is working with state officials to “understand and resolve the issues forming the basis for EPA’s reconsideration of its 2024 decision”.Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition policy at the Harkin Institute at Drake University, said the recent events are disheartening.“I think it shows just how far we still have left to go,” Shriver said. “The farm bureau opposed the initial impairment designation and was taking a victory lap with the recent EPA announcement. As long as they continue to get whatever they want from every level of government while other stakeholders are ignored, public health is going to suffer.”This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group More