US news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares151 Views

      in US Politics

      Key climate change reports removed from US government websites

      by

      Legally mandated US national climate assessments seem to have disappeared from the federal websites built to display them, making it harder for state and local governments and the public to learn what to expect in their back yards from a warming world.Scientists said the peer-reviewed authoritative reports save money and lives. Websites for the national assessments and the US Global Change Research Program were down Monday and Tuesday with no links, notes or referrals elsewhere. The White House, which was responsible for the assessments, said the information will be housed within Nasa to comply with the law, but gave no further details.Searches for the assessments on Nasa websites did not turn them up. Nasa did not respond to requests for information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which coordinated the information in the assessments, did not respond to repeated inquiries.“It’s critical for decision-makers across the country to know what the science in the National Climate Assessment is. That is the most reliable and well-reviewed source of information about climate that exists for the United States,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist, who coordinated the 2014 version of the report.“It’s a sad day for the United States if it is true that the National Climate Assessment is no longer available,” Jacobs added. “This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people’s access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts.”Harvard climate scientist John Holdren, who was Barack Obama’s science adviser and whose office directed the assessments, said that after the 2014 edition, he visited governors, mayors and other local officials who told him how useful the 841-page report had been. It helped them decide whether to raise roads, build seawalls and even move hospital generators from basements to roofs, he said.“This is a government resource paid for by the taxpayer to provide the information that really is the primary source of information for any city, state or federal agency who’s trying to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who has been a volunteer author for several editions of the report.Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in Noaa’s library. Nasa’s open science data repository includes dead links to the assessment site.The most recent report, issued in 2023, includes an interactive atlas that zooms down to the county level. It found that climate change is affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority and Native American communities often disproportionately at risk.The 1990 Global Change Research Act requires a national climate assessment every four years and directs the president to establish an interagency United States Global Change Research Program. In the spring, the Trump administration told the volunteer authors of the next climate assessment that their services weren’t needed and ended the contract with the private firm that helps coordinate the website and report.Additionally, Noaa’s main climate.gov website was recently forwarded to a different Noaa website. Social media and blogs at Noaa and Nasa about climate impacts for the general public were cut or eliminated.“It’s part of a horrifying big picture,” Holdren said. “It’s just an appalling whole demolition of science infrastructure.”The national assessments are more useful than international climate reports put out by the UN every seven or so years because they are more localized and more detailed, Hayhoe and Jacobs said.The national reports are not only peer-reviewed by other scientists, but examined for accuracy by the National Academy of Sciences, federal agencies, the staff and the public.Hiding the reports would be censoring science, Jacobs said.It’s also dangerous for the country, Hayhoe said, comparing it to steering a car on a curving road by only looking through the rearview mirror: “And now, more than ever, we need to be looking ahead to do everything it takes to make it around that curve safely. It’s like our windshield’s being painted over.” More

    • 163 Shares135 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump and Musk’s feud blows up again with threats of Doge and deportation

      by

      Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s feud reignited this week with the former political allies trading sharp public threats of retribution. The blowup, centered around Musk’s opposition to Trump’s signature tax bill as it moves through Congress, ends a period of rapprochement between two of the world’s most powerful men.Musk posted escalating attacks against Trump’s sweeping spending bill on his social media platform X, calling the legislation “insane” and vowing to form a new political party if it passed late Monday. In response, Trump claimed he could “look into” deporting the South Africa-born billionaire, while also suggesting he could cut government subsidies for Musk’s companies or set the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) on its former leader.“Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible?” Trump asked reporters on Tuesday.Musk’s attempt to derail the tax bill was a major factor in his falling out with the president last month, and the Tesla CEO’s renewed offensive comes at a sensitive time as Trump seeks to shepherd the legislation through Congress. The fight could test Musk’s political influence over the Republican party as he seeks to peel away votes for the bill, as well as further deteriorate his once-close relationship with Trump.Musk has repeatedly criticized the legislation Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill” for its potential to nullify the cuts to the federal government he made through Doge and for the likelihood it will add trillions to the national debt, which he has warned will “bankrupt America” and imperil his dream of reaching Mars. Musk, a top Republican megadonor, intensified his campaign in recent days with threats that he would form his own “America Party” and target lawmakers in upcoming elections who voted for the bill in 2026 primary elections.“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!” Musk posted. “They will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”Trump has rejected Musk’s criticisms of the bill, alleging that his opposition is because the bill would end a tax credit for consumers purchasing electric vehicles.“Elon’s very upset that the EV mandate is gonna be terminated,” Trump said on Tuesday. “Not everybody wants an electric car. I don’t want an electric car.”When a reporter asked if Trump is considering deporting Musk, he responded that he didn’t know but would “take a look”. Musk replied to a video of the statement on X, saying: “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.” Trump bought a Tesla in March.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s remarks were a stark turnaround from only months ago when he hosted a showcase for Tesla on the White House lawn in front of media, during which he encouraged his supporters to buy Musk’s cars and sat in the driver’s seat of a red Model S sedan. In contrast, Trump threatened this week that he could destroy Musk’s businesses.“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday. “No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE.”Musk’s companies, especially SpaceX, are closely intertwined with US government agencies and have received billions of dollars in contracts from them. The government has meanwhile come to rely on SpaceX for key parts of its space travel and satellite communications programs, and the company is being considered for a role in building a new multibillion dollar missile defense program. The symbiotic relationship between Musk and the government has made any political tensions sensitive for his businesses, and Tesla’s share price declined on Monday and Tuesday as the feud continued. More

    • 125 Shares135 Views

      in US Politics

      Senate Republicans pass Trump’s sweeping policy bill, clearing major hurdle

      by

      Senate Republicans on Tuesday passed a major tax and spending bill demanded by Donald Trump, ending weeks of negotiations over the comprehensive legislation and putting it another step closer to enactment.But it remains unclear whether changes made by the chamber will be accepted by the House of Representatives, which approved an initial draft of the legislation last month by a single vote. While Republicans control both houses of Congress, factionalism in the lower chamber is particularly intense, with rightwing fiscal hardliners demanding deep spending cuts, moderates wary of dismantling safety-net programs and Republicans from Democratic-led states expected to make a stand on a contentious tax provision. Any one of these groups could potentially derail the bill’s passage through a chamber where the GOP can lose no more than three votes.The bill’s passage is nonetheless an accomplishment for Senate Republicans who faced their own divisions in getting it passed, and saw one lawmaker announce his retirement after clashing with Trump over the bill. The push to get the legislation done intensified on Saturday when the chamber voted to begin debate, then continued with amendment votes that began on Monday and stretched all night.The vote for passage came just after noon on Tuesday, and required the vice-president, JD Vance, to break a tie that resulted after three Republicans joined with all Democrats in voting against it.In a joint statement, the speaker, Mike Johnson, and the House Republican leadership said: “Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first. This bill is President Trump’s agenda, and we are making it law.”The Senate majority leader, John Thune, said Republican senators and staff began laying the groundwork for this budget bill more than a year ago, planning how they would extend tax breaks if they had the votes. He said: “Since we took office in January, Republicans have been laser-focused on achieving the bill before us today. And now we’re here, passing legislation that will permanently extend tax relief for hard-working Americans.”The lower chamber will take up the measure on Wednesday, before a deadline Trump has imposed to have it on his desk by Friday, the Independence Day holiday. But the president has recently made comments indicating the bill could arrive later, saying at a press conference on Friday “we can go longer”, before writing on Truth Social that “the House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th”.Trump has described the bill as crucial to his presidency, and congressional Republicans made it their top priority. It will extend tax cuts enacted during the president’s first term in 2017, and includes new provisions to cut taxes on tips, overtime and interest payments for some car loans. It funds Trump’s plans for mass deportations by allocating $45bn for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, $14bn for deportation operations and billions of dollars more to hire an additional 10,000 new agents by 2029. It also includes more than $50bn for the construction of new border fortifications, which will probably include a wall along the border with Mexico.To satisfy demands from fiscal conservatives for cuts to the US’s large federal budget deficit, the bill imposes new work requirements on enrollees of Medicaid, which provides healthcare to low-income and disabled Americans. It also imposes a limit on the provider tax states use to fund their program, which could lead to reductions in services. Finally, it sunsets some incentives for green-energy technologies created by Congress under Joe Biden.Nonetheless, the bill would add $3.3tn to the US budget deficit through 2034, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-profit focused on fiscal responsibility, called the bill “a failure of responsible governing” because it will add to the federal debt and includes budget gimmicks that disguise how much debt it is adding. The group estimated it would add more than $4tn to the national debt through 2034, and said that if some “arbitrary expirations” were made permanent, they would add $5.4tn.“The Senate reconciliation bill fails almost every test of fiscal responsibility,” said Maya MacGuineas, the group’s president. “Instead of worrying about arbitrary deadlines or sparing the Senate another vote-a-rama, fiscal conservatives should stand up for what’s right and reject the Senate plan to explode our debt.”While it was formally titled the one big beautiful bill act, the Senate’s Democratic minority leader, Chuck Schumer, managed to get the name stricken minutes before the vote for passage, though that is not expected to change how many lawmakers refer to it. Because it was passed using the budget reconciliation procedure that requires legislation only affect spending, revenue and the debt limit, Democrats were unable to use the filibuster to block its passage in the Senate.Schumer called the bill a “big, ugly betrayal”, pointing to the millions who will lose health insurance, job losses and debt increase done in favor of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporate special interests. He also decried the process Republicans used to pass the bill, saying they pushed the rules and norms of the chamber in a way that did “grave damage” to the body.“Today’s vote will haunt our Republican colleagues for years to come as the American people see the damage that is done – as hospitals close, as people are laid off, as costs go up, as the debt increases. They will see what our colleagues have done and they will remember it, and we Democrats will make sure they remember it,” Schumer said.In the lead-up to the bill’s passage, several moderate Republicans signaled unease with its cuts to the social safety net, including North Carolina’s Thom Tillis. After saying on Saturday he would not vote for the bill, Trump publicly attacked him, and the senator announced he would not run for re-election next year, potentially improving Democrats’ chances of picking up the purple state’s seat.“It is inescapable this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made,” Tillis said on Sunday. Pointing to a forecast that the bill would cost 663,000 North Carolinians their Medicaid coverage, Tillis said: “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there any more, guys?”In addition to Tillis, Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against passage, criticizing the bill’s impact on the budget deficit and national debt. Susan Collins, who is expected to face a fierce re-election challenge next year from Democrats for her seat in Maine, also opposed it, saying the measure would “threaten not only Mainers’ access to healthcare, but also the very existence of several of our state’s rural hospitals”.The Alaska moderate Lisa Murkowski expressed similar concerns about its effect on Medicaid, but ended up voting for passage.Now that the legislation is back in the House, Johnson faces a difficult task in getting the Senate’s changes cleared by his conference’s competing factions.Moderates remain concerned about the safety-net cuts, while rightwing Republicans have railed against the bill’s expensive price tag. Last week, David Valadao, a Republican representative whose central California district has one of the highest Medicaid enrollment rates in the nation, said he would not support the measure over its funding changes to the program.On Monday, before the bill’s passage, the Democratic National Committee announced the launch of an organizing campaign to capitalize on the unpopularity of the budget plan’s provisions. Ken Martin, the chair of the DNC, shared in a press briefing that when he was growing up, his family relied on the kinds of safety-net programs that are being cut.Martin said in a statement on Tuesday that the bill helps billionaires at the expense of American families – the sort of messaging the party will rely on as it hits the road to turn out voters for the midterms and special elections.“It’s a massive scheme to steal from working folks, struggling families and, hell, even from nursing homes – all to enrich the already rich with a tax giveaway,” Martin said. “Billionaires don’t need more help – working families do. Democrats will stand shoulder to shoulder with working families to kick these Republicans out of their seats in 2026.”The rightwing House Freedom caucus has also criticized the bill for its price tag. “The Senate must make major changes and should at least be in the ballpark of compliance with the agreed upon House budget framework. Republicans must do better,” they wrote on Monday, as amendments were being considered.In a Tuesday press conference, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said the bill represents the “largest cut to Medicaid in American history”. He expects his caucus will uniformly oppose the bill and will be making the case to vote it down in the rules committee and on the House floor.When asked whether House Democrats would use any procedural moves to delay passage of the bill, Jeffries said: “All procedural and legislative options are on the table.” More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      What’s in Trump’s major tax bill? Extended cuts, deportations and more

      by

      Senate Republicans on Tuesday passed Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill after spending all night voting on amendments. The bill, which the GOP has dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now returns to the House of Representatives, which passed their version last month, before a Friday deadline the president has imposed for the legislation to be on his desk.Here’s what’s in the Senate’s version of the bill:Extending big tax cutsAfter taking office in 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered taxes and increased the standard deduction for all taxpayers, but generally benefited high earners more than most. Those provisions are set to expire after this year, but the “big, beautiful bill” makes them permanent, while increasing the standard deduction by $1,000 for individuals, $1,500 for heads of households and $2,000 for married couples, albeit only through 2028.Cutting tax on tips or overtimeThe bill has an array of new tax write-offs – but only while Trump is president. Several of the new exemptions stem from promises Trump made while campaigning last year. Taxpayers will be able to write off income from tips and overtime, and interest made on loans to purchase cars assembled in the United States. People aged 65 and over are eligible for an additional deduction of $6,000, provided their adjusted gross income does not exceed $75,000 for single filers or $150,000 for couples. But all of these incentives expire at the end of 2028, right before Trump’s term as president ends.Money for mass deportations and a border wallAs part of Trump’s plan to remove undocumented immigrants from the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will receive $45bn for detention facilities, $14bn for deportation operations and billions of dollars more to hire an additional 10,000 new agents by 2029. More than $50bn is allocated for the construction of new border fortifications, which will probably include a wall along the border with Mexico.Slashing Medicaid and food stampsRepublicans have attempted to cut down on the bill’s cost by slashing two major federal safety-net programs: Medicaid, which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps people afford groceries. Both are in for funding cuts, as well as new work requirements. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the Medicaid changes could cost as many as 10.6 million people their healthcare, and about eight million people, or one in five recipients, their Snap benefits.Cuts to green energyThe bill will phase out many tax incentives created by Congress during Joe Biden’s presidency meant to encourage consumers and businesses to use electric vehicles and other clean-energy technology. Credits for cleaner cars will end this year, as will subsidies for Americans seeking to upgrade their homes to cleaner or more energy-efficient appliances. While a draft of the bill targeted wind- and solar-energy projects with a new excise tax, senators voted to remove that at the last minute.State and local tax relief (Salt)One of the thorniest issues the bill addresses is how much relief to provide from state and local taxes (Salt), which many Americans must also pay in addition to their federal tax. Several House Republicans representing districts in Democratic-led states withheld their support from the bill until the Salt deductibility cap was raised from $10,000 to $40,000, but Senate Republicans made clear they would change that. The Senate’s version keeps the $40,000 cap, but only through 2028.Raising the debt ceilingThe bill will increase the US government’s authority to borrow, known as the debt limit, by $5tn. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has predicted the government will hit the limit by August, at which point it could default on its debt and spark a financial crisis.More benefits for the rich than the poorWealthier taxpayers appear set to receive more benefits from this bill than poorer ones, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. Taxpayers in the lowest-income quintile will see a 2.5% decrease in their incomes, largely due to the Snap and Medicaid cuts, while the highest earners will see their incomes grow by 2.4%, the Budget Lab estimated. The impact could change based on which amendments the Senate adopts.A huge price tagDespite the GOP’s attempts to use the bill as a vehicle to rein in government spending, the bill would increase the deficit by $3.3tn through 2034, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Most of that price tag is the extension of the 2017 tax cuts. The heavy budgetary impact could complicate the bill’s chances of passing the House, where fiscal hardliners have demanded budget-deficit reductions. More

    • 238 Shares148 Views

      in US Politics

      I can’t believe I need to spell this out – but Trump is not your daddy | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      Is your name Barron, Donald Jr, Eric, Ivanka or Tiffany Trump? No? Then I regret to inform you that President Donald John Trump is almost certainly not your daddy. I say “almost certainly” because narcissistic billionaires do have a nasty habit of spawning willy-nilly. Just look at Elon Musk and Pavel Durov – the latter is the Telegram founder, who has more than 100 children in 12 countries via sperm donation.Still, unless you are a very high-IQ individual, with an orange glow, an insatiable appetite for money-making schemes, and a weird belief that you invented the word “caravan”, I think it’s safe to say that you’re probably not Trump’s offspring.Why am I taking great pains to spell this out? Because a disturbing condition called Trump daddy derangement syndrome (TDDS) is sweeping the world – the main symptom of which is an irresistible urge to call the president of the United States “Daddy”.Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson bears some blame for the spread of this ailment. While speaking at a Trump rally last October, Carlson delivered an unusual speech in which he compared the US under Trump to a patriarch giving his naughty teenage daughter a “vigorous spanking”. Rather than immediately losing the contents of their stomach because of this imagery, the Maga-loving crowd lapped it up. When Trump came on stage later they yelled “Daddy’s home!” and “Daddy Don!” Which, of course, plays right into Trump’s self-mythologising as a hypermasculine strongman who will be a protector of women “whether they like it or not”.While TDDS remained fairly dormant for a few months after that, it seems we are suffering a new outbreak. Last week, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte addressed Trump’s comments about Israel and Iran not knowing “what the fuck they’re doing” by helpfully explaining that: “Sometimes Daddy needs to use strong language.”And sometimes a Nato chief needs to watch their language. After his comments caused a social media storm, Rutte rapidly back-pedalled. “The daddy thing, I didn’t call him ‘Daddy,’” Rutte told reporters later that day, despite being on the record saying just that. “Sometimes, in Europe, I hear … countries saying: ‘Hey, Mark, will the US stay with us?’ And I said that sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy: ‘Hey, are you still staying with the family?’ So in that sense, I used ‘daddy’ – not that I was calling President Trump Daddy.”Nice try, Mark, but I’m not sure that makes things better. Rutte, a Dutchman, is basically calling Europe a helpless child who needs Trump’s approval.Whatever Rutte meant, Trump and his followers seem to have taken “daddy” as a compliment. Last week Jonathan Lindsey, a Republican lawmaker, told fellow Michigan senate members that a lot of Americans see Trump as a father figure and more people should start referring to him as “Daddy”. Gay Democratic Michigan senator Jeremy Moss then replied: “You don’t want to know what daddy means in my community.” Just to spell it out, “daddy” has been gay slang for an older man, often monied, who is sexually involved with a younger man for almost as long as Trump has been alive.Meanwhile, Trump spoke approvingly of Rutte’s comments, saying: “I think he likes me.” He added: “If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know. I’ll come back and I’ll hit him hard, OK? He did it very affectionately. Daddy, you’re my daddy.” Trump’s fundraising operation is also flogging T-shirts with his mugshot and the word “DADDY” on them for just $35. Sigmund Freud, sadly, could not be reached for comment on all this. But if he were available, I think even he might have said: “Mummy, please make this stop.” More

    • 213 Shares148 Views

      in US Politics

      A private prison firm wants to detain immigrants in this Kansas town. Its residents are pushing back

      by

      It was a lovely May evening in Leavenworth, Kansas, but instead of strolling along the Missouri River or gardening, a group of locals sat on squeaky folding chairs at the public library to discuss their mission: how to stop a private prison behemoth from warehousing immigrants down the road.This was happening in a famously pro-prison town, home to one of the oldest federal penitentiaries, and where Donald Trump won more than 60% of the vote in 2024. Besides the military and the Veterans Affairs medical center, prisons are the largest employer in this community, 30 miles north-west of Kansas City. With federal immigration detention facilities around the country packed due to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, the private prison industry is experiencing a boom. Stock prices of companies such as GEO Group and CoreCivic soared as they gained scores of contracts.But when CoreCivic applied earlier this year for a permit in Leavenworth to reopen a prison with a troubled history to hold immigration detainees, city officials balked. And local residents – including some former prison employees – pushed back.That evening at the library, the citizens waited to hear whether a federal judge would decide if Leavenworth had the right to tell CoreCivic to buzz off. Regardless of what happened in court, organizers of this “teach-in” were preparing attendees for the next possible round of the fight. Over homemade chocolate chip cookies and sun tea, they talked about how to get letters published in the Leavenworth Times and reminded attendees to politely pester elected officials.Local organizer (and cookie baker) Rick Hammett suggested to the crowd that political and corporate interests had stirred fears of immigrants ahead of the 2024 election cycle to benefit private prisons.“To be profitable, private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled,” Hammett said. “Which is how you end up with a scare tactic over migrants to drum up a reason to put people in jail.”In early June, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported the most immigrant arrests in a single day in its history: more than 2,200 people.Ashley Hernandez, an organizer for the Sisters of Charityof Leavenworth, lamented that CoreCivic has portrayed those who oppose the Ice detention facility as “out-of-town” agitators. But this room is full of locals, she noted. “They’re the outside organization.”The Sisters of Charity is a Catholic convent – they prefer the term “community” – that has been in Leavenworth longer than the prisons – even before statehood. Part of the Sisters’ mission is to “advocate for justice and systemic change” for exploited and marginalized people, Hernandez later explained.View image in fullscreenThe nuns “understand the history of injustices that have gone on in that prison, and they’ve never been OK with that”, she said.Leavenworth’s landmarks hint at a progressive past that dates to at least the 1850s, when Kansas opposed slavery and fought for admission to the US as a free state. The effort’s most radical proposal was the “Leavenworth constitution” which asserted that “all men are by nature equally free and independent”. Leavenworth’s city hall has statues of Lady Liberty and Abraham Lincoln; a nearby park has a plaque for women’s suffragist Susan B Anthony, who spent time here with her newspaper publisher brother. The landscape is dotted with little reminders that people who don’t have power can always fight for it.Many locals remember what happened when CoreCivic previously ran the detention center, housing mostly pretrial detainees for the US marshals from 1992-2021. They recall guards who were permanently injured by prisoner attacks and understaffing that undermined security, according to a federal audit.Mike Trapp, a local writer and activist who reserved the room for the library teach-in, said he’s seen some softening recently among his neighbors who were Trump voters. Even those who support the mass deportations “are on our side in not trusting CoreCivic to do the right thing”, he said.Scandals plagued the facility during its final years of operation – beatings, stabbings, suicides and alleged sexual assaults, according to court records. Leavenworth police said they were blocked at the gate from investigating crimes inside. The facility finally closed in 2021 as the Biden administration shifted away from private prison contracts.The city changed its ordinance since CoreCivic initially opened a prison here, just six miles south of the federal government’s own massive medium-security penitentiary, which has been operating since 1903. The rules now require a new prison operator to seek a city permit. CoreCivic paid a fee and applied for a permit in February to reopen its facility, now called the Midwest Regional Reception Center. But the firm quickly reversed course as residents’ opposition mounted.CoreCivic argued in court filings that because it retained employees in Leavenworth, it never really closed – and didn’t need a permit to reopen the facility. City leaders responded by suing in federal court, and then state court, seeking to block CoreCivic from repopulating the facility. In filings, the city argued the company previously ran an “absolute hell hole”, and the infamous American prison town did not want this one.In an editorial in the Kansas Reflector, critics of reopening the prison fumed: “CoreCivic has repeatedly shown that it is incapable of running a humane facility. Now, the company flouts city approval to move forward with an ICE center based on false promises.”View image in fullscreenSome in Leavenworth opposed the new facility because they feared undocumented immigrants could be released locally, leading CoreCivic to repeatedly promise that any agreement with Ice would strictly prohibit that.In early June, a state district judge sided with the city and issued a temporary injunction, saying the company needed a permit.David Waters, a lawyer for the city, said the case is about following the permitting process and not about “immigration policy, writ large”.A week later, CoreCivic filed a motion asking the district court judge to reconsider, arguing that the city failed to prove reopening the facility would cause “irreparable” future harm or that the company needed a permit.Leaders at CoreCivic have dismissed critics, saying the company has had more than 1,600 applicants for 300 jobs with a starting salary of $28.25 an hour, plus benefits.“We maintain the position that our facility, which we’ve operated for almost 30 years, does not require a Special Use Permit to care for detainees in partnership with ICE,” said Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs, in an email.He touted the company’s promises to Leavenworth: a one-time impact fee of $1m, a $250,000 annual fee and an additional $150,000 annual fee to the police department. This is in addition to the over $1m in annual property taxes CoreCivic already pays, Gustin said.The Reception Center originally expected “residents” as of 1 June. The company has posted numerous photos of its warden handing out $10,000 checks to veteran’s causes and the Salvation Army.In legal filings, CoreCivic argued that preventing the opening of its 1,000-plus bed facility would cost it more than $4m a month. In a federal financial disclosure filed in May, the company stated its letter agreement for the Leavenworth facility with Ice authorized payment up to nearly $23m for a six-month period “while the parties work to negotiate and execute a long-term contract”.Gustin said most of the concerns about safety and security of the facility were “concentrated in an 18-month period” over 30 years of operations and attributed staffing shortages to the Covid-19 pandemic and a tight labor market. “As with any difficult situation, we sought to learn from it,” he said.When CoreCivic previously operated the Leavenworth detention center, Tina Shonk-Little was detained there for about 16 months for insurance fraud. She described for the crowd that night at the Leavenworth library how medical and dental care in the facility was scant.“If you had a toothache, they just pulled it,” she said. Her smile bears the scars.View image in fullscreenShe recoiled when Hammett cited public records showing CoreCivic’s CEO earned more than $7m last year. Corporate leaders at CoreCivic and GEO Group gushed on recent earnings calls about the “unprecedented opportunity” they’re facing with Trump in office. Ads and text messages show CoreCivic is offering new guards $2,500 signing bonuses.Across the river in rural Missouri, cash-strapped sheriff’s departments are signing up to hold Ice detainees in small jails for $110 per night, per head, and to transport them as far as Kansas City for $1.10 per mile. Emails obtained through public records requests show that about a week after Trump was elected, CoreCivic leadership began contacting Leavenworth city officials about reopening their facility there.“They don’t want to do better. They are in it for profit,” Shonk-Little said. “They could give two shits about the people. The more people they have, the better off they are because it’s more money in their pocket.”Shonk-Little expressed sympathy for the corrections officers who worked there. “God bless the corrections officers who did what they could with what they had,” she said.Toward the back of the room sat Bill Rogers, a brick wall of a man who spends nearly two hours a day in the gym. He was one of those guards. A few minutes after her speech, Rogers stood suddenly, looking like a frog was lodged in his throat, as his eyes welled with tears.He spoke directly to Shonk-Little: “What courage … to come here. And everything you said was right. It was true. I remember. And as a former officer, I apologize. That’s all I can say.”She responded: “I’m sorry you were treated the way you were treated also.”They hugged.At a coffee shop the next morning, Rogers explained he was a high school dropout and heavy equipment operator who thought $20 an hour, plus benefits, working for CoreCivic sounded like a good gig.“I just needed a job,” he recalled. He started working as a correctional officer in 2016 and initially loved it.“I bet you 85% of those inmates I met? I would have hung out with them on the street. They were just decent people who made a mistake. I really believe that,” he said.Not long after Rogers started, the voluntary overtime shifts became mandatory. A 2017 audit by the Department of Justice found that understaffing was hurting safety and security at the facility. In recent court filings, lawyers for Leavenworth accused CoreCivic of gross mismanagement of the previous facility, resulting in “rampant abuse, violence and violations of the constitutional rights of its detainees and staff”.They referenced one incident in November 2018, when CoreCivic didn’t report the death of an inmate to city police for six days.It’s that death that haunts Rogers’ dreams. Dillon Reed was only 29 when he ended up at the Leavenworth facility on a drug charge, but Rogers remembered he was a funny, sweet kid who reminded him of his adult son.View image in fullscreen“He made me laugh,” Rogers said.Reed had an addiction, and alcohol and drugs were rampant inside the prison, Rogers said. On Thanksgiving Day in 2018, Reed was found dead in his cell. Rogers was working in a different section of the facility, but he was called to remove Reed’s body from his cell. An autopsy later showed that Reed likely died of sudden cardiac death, with a mixture of alcohol and drugs in his system.Rogers still can’t talk about it without getting choked up. Calling an ambulance quickly could have saved Reed, he said.“When that door came open? I didn’t see an inmate. I saw a young man … and I saw my son,” he said. “I don’t care that he was an inmate … he was a human soul. He shouldn’t have died. We had a job to do, and it didn’t happen that day.”In 2020, Rogers was stabbed in the hand and had his head split open with a cafeteria tray by combative prisoners. Later that year, he was so fed up with the lack of security, he said, that when a prisoner came at him, he shoved the man against the wall – and was fired.Some of Rogers’ former detention officer friends will not talk to him anymore, because he’s been speaking out, he said. He said they tell him: “You didn’t do shit when you worked there, and now you’re running your mouth.”Marcia Levering, a former CoreCivic colleague of Rogers, is also speaking out about the attack by a prisoner that nearly killed her. She was working in February 2021, shortly before the facility closed, when a colleague opened the wrong security door. A prisoner who was angry at her beat her senselessly and stabbed her multiple times. She spent two months in the hospital and is now permanently disabled, struggling to pay her rent.“They’re not looking out for the safety of their inmates or staff,” Levering said of CoreCivic. “They’re looking out for their own self-interest, which is taking the taxpayers’ money to line the pockets of their higher-ups.”Lawyers for the city of Leavenworth filed a motion last week asking the state district judge to formalize the temporary injunction. The motion states that the “federal government might apply pressure on CoreCivic to defy or look for loopholes in this Court’s orders”, while noting that the company has “accelerated” activity at the detention center.Meanwhile, residents are planning a march against the detention center on 19 July. They plan to meet 10 days earlier at MoMos to make homemade protest signs.

      This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization covering the US criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook More

    • 175 Shares82 Views

      in US Politics

      Senate holds marathon ‘vote-a-rama’ on Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ – US politics live

      by

      Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.The US Senate is holding a marathon vote on a sprawling budget that is vital to Donald Trump’s agenda and would see sweeping tax breaks and cuts to healthcare and food programmes if passed.Senators have convened at the Capitol for a process known as “vote-a-rama”, in which lawmakers will propose amendments to the legislation over what is expected to be many hours.Democrats say the bill’s tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social programs for lower-income Americans.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (yes, it is formally called this) is expected to add an estimated $3.3tn to the national debt over the next decade. Republicans are rushing to pass the bill Trump’s self-imposed deadline of 4 July.Republicans – who control both chambers of Congress and are generally loyal to Trump – are heavily divided over how deep welfare cuts should be in order to extend tax breaks in the legislation.It is about 2.30am in Washington and it has been over 16 hours since voting began. We are expecting a result in around two and a half/ three hours time. Stay with us for all the latest developments.In other news:

      Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars in support of Trump’s candidacy, has pledged to found a new political party he called the “America Party” and support candidates who did not back the budget bill in future elections.

      The Senate parliamentarian found that Republicans can include a provision that would block Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood in the “big, beautiful bill”.

      Trump signed an executive order overturning sanctions on Syria today and issued a memorandum on US policy toward Cuba.

      The Trump administration sued the city of Los Angeles over policies limiting city cooperation with federal immigration authorities, continuing a confrontation over Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts in the largely Democratic city.

      The Trump administration informed Harvard University that its investigation found that the university violated federal civil rights law over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students, putting its federal funding further at risk.

      Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 7 July.

      Trump wrote to Fed chair Jerome Powell again urging him to lower interest rates.
      Beginning early on Monday and so far having run for roughly 19 hours, it remains unclear how long the voting in the marathon ‘vote-a-rama’ will last.Republicans can afford to lose no more than three votes in either chamber to pass a bill the Democrats are united in opposition to.If approved in the Republican-controlled Senate, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will return to the lower House of Representatives, also Republican controlled, which passed its own version by a single vote at the end of May (215 to 214).In the House, a full vote on the Senate’s final version of the bill could then come as early as Wednesday morning.The senate has adopted an amendment offered by Republican senator Joni Ernst – who represents Iowa – to prevent jobless millionaires from claiming unemployment compensation.Lawmakers voted 99-1 to strike the AI regulation ban from the bill by adopting an amendment offered by Republican senator Marsha Blackburn.Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who announced his retirement on Sunday after voting not to proceed with the megabill, was the lone lawmaker who voted to retain the ban.The Senate version of Trump’s legislation would have only restricted states regulating AI from tapping a new $500m fund to support AI infrastructure.Major AI companies, including Alphabet’s Google and OpenAI, have expressed support for Congress taking AI regulation out of the hands of states.Blackburn presented her amendment to strike the provision a day after agreeing to compromise language with Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz that would have cut the ban to five years and allowed states to regulate issues such as protecting artists’ voices or child online safety if they did not impose an “undue or disproportionate burden” on AI.But Blackburn withdrew her support for the compromise before the amendment vote.In a statement, the Tennessee Republican said:
      The current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most.
      Until Congress passes federally preemptive legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act and an online privacy framework, we can’t block states from making laws that protect their citizens.
      The Republican-led US Senate has voted overwhelmingly to remove a 10-year federal ban on state regulation of AI from Trump’s mega bill, Reuters is reporting. More details soon…Johana Bhuiyan is a senior tech reporter and editor for Guardian US, based in San FranciscoThe US Department of Homeland Security has for the first time built a national citizenship database that combines information from immigration agencies and the social security administration.The database was created in collaboration with the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) in an effort to bridge the gaps between disparate information sources to make it easier to determine whether someone is a citizen, according to NPR, which first reported the details of the database.The database is the result of an expansion of the systematic alien verification for entitlements (Save) program, made up of smaller databases within the homeland security department, and an integration with information from the Social Security Administration.The centralized repository is searchable and can be accessed by state and local election officials to look up the names of anyone trying to vote to determine if they are citizens, according to NPR. Until now, election officials had to ask potential voters for documents verifying their citizenship or rely on a hard-to-navigate patchwork of databases.You can read the full story here:Some more news from the US senate now, where Republicans are – for the most part – still trying to pass Trump’s mega-bill.Maine’s Republican senator Susan Collins has blamed Democrats for tanking her amendment to increase the bill’s rural hospital relief fund, saying they are “hypocrites” for championing themselves as protectors of Medicaid but then opposing her efforts to reduce the impacts of the legislation on rural hospitals.“I was surprised at the hypocrisy of the Democrats on it, had they voted for it would have passed easily,” ABC News quoted Collins as having told reporters this morning.Only two Democrats out of 22 senators supported Collins’ amendment, which would have seen the creation of a new top marginal tax rate used to double the size of the proposed rural hospital relief fund from $25bn to $50bn.Collins added:
      They complained repeatedly about the distribution in this bill of Medicaid cuts, hurting individuals in rural hospitals and tax cuts being extended for people who are wealthy. And yet, when we tried to fix both those problems, they took a very hypocritical approach.
      Rural and smaller hospitals are at risk of bankruptcy because of the steep Medicaid cuts being proposed in the budget bill.Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.Musk wrote on his social media platform, X:
      Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!
      And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.
      A few hours later he added that if “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up.Since taking leave from his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, Musk has sharply criticized Trump’s budget bill, which he has said will undermine his work at Doge by increasing spending.You can read the full story by my colleague, Maanvi Singh, here:

      The Senate bill includes $4.5tn in tax cuts, according to the latest analysis from the congressional budget office, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act.

      The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide.

      It would impose $1.2tn in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing stricter work requirements, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states. Medicaid provides government-sponsored health care for low-income and disabled Americans.

      The bill would provide a $350bn infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.
      Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats will bring “amendment after amendment after amendment to the floor, so Republicans can defend their billionaire tax cuts.”He said Democrats would offer amendments to “see once and for all if Republicans really meant all those nice things they’ve been saying about ‘strengthening Medicaid’ and ‘protecting middle-class families’, or if they were just lying”.As the marathon session grinds into the early hours of the morning, some lawmakers are finding ways to relax or vent away from the heat of the chamber.GOP senators took breaks from the Senate floor as well.Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama, smoked a cigar on the Capitol terrace at sunset while other GOP senators took calls and chatted in rooms near the Senate chamber.This weekend’s dramatic senate session saw a narrow 51-49 passing of a procedural vote on Saturday night to advance the budget bill and a forced reading of the 940-page bill by Democrats, a political manoeuvre that was deployed to stall its progress.Two Republicans sided with Democrats in voting against opening debate, wanting to change parts of the contentious legislation.One of these Republicans was the North Carolina moderate Thom Tillis, who said the package was a betrayal of Donald Trump’s promise not to withdraw healthcare from people, something he fears could happen if rural hospitals close. The other was Rand Paul of Kentucky.The bill must now clear a formal Senate vote and be returned to the lower House for approval – which Trump wants done before a self-imposed Fourth of July holiday deadline.As my colleague Chris Stein explains in this story, after Tillis declined to vote for the bill, Trump attacked him and the senator announced he would not stand for re-election next year, potentially improving Democrats’ chances of picking up the purple state’s seat.Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.The US Senate is holding a marathon vote on a sprawling budget that is vital to Donald Trump’s agenda and would see sweeping tax breaks and cuts to healthcare and food programmes if passed.Senators have convened at the Capitol for a process known as “vote-a-rama”, in which lawmakers will propose amendments to the legislation over what is expected to be many hours.Democrats say the bill’s tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social programs for lower-income Americans.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (yes, it is formally called this) is expected to add an estimated $3.3tn to the national debt over the next decade. Republicans are rushing to pass the bill Trump’s self-imposed deadline of 4 July.Republicans – who control both chambers of Congress and are generally loyal to Trump – are heavily divided over how deep welfare cuts should be in order to extend tax breaks in the legislation.It is about 2.30am in Washington and it has been over 16 hours since voting began. We are expecting a result in around two and a half/ three hours time. Stay with us for all the latest developments.In other news:

      Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars in support of Trump’s candidacy, has pledged to found a new political party he called the “America Party” and support candidates who did not back the budget bill in future elections.

      The Senate parliamentarian found that Republicans can include a provision that would block Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood in the “big, beautiful bill”.

      Trump signed an executive order overturning sanctions on Syria today and issued a memorandum on US policy toward Cuba.

      The Trump administration sued the city of Los Angeles over policies limiting city cooperation with federal immigration authorities, continuing a confrontation over Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts in the largely Democratic city.

      The Trump administration informed Harvard University that its investigation found that the university violated federal civil rights law over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students, putting its federal funding further at risk.

      Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 7 July.

      Trump wrote to Fed chair Jerome Powell again urging him to lower interest rates. More