Janine Jackson interviewed the Hartmann Report‘s Thom Hartmann about Jeffrey Epstein and the MAGA movement for the July 25, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Hartmann Report (7/24/25)

Janine Jackson: There’s no need to choose: We can and must address the grievousness of the operation Jeffrey Epstein ran, how it was abetted by the banks that process the checks, and the lawyers dismissing the women who were brave enough to come forward, against literally the most powerful people in the country. And at the same time, we can marvel that this is what it takes to get a measurable subset of the MAGA cult to say, “Wait a minute, the guy who said, ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ is a creep?”

The Trump base’s relationship to reality is obscure to many people who are wondering; Why this? Why now? As much as we might want to look away, those questions have repercussions for all of us.

Here to help us with understanding the place of the Epstein story in various narratives, including that of corporate news media, is Thom Hartmann. He is a political analyst, radio host, author of the daily newsletter the Hartmann Report, along with many books, including The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink, which is forthcoming from Penguin Random House. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Thom Hartmann.

Thom Hartmann: Hey, thanks, Janine. Thanks for inviting me.

JJ: The MAGA/QAnon relationship to pedophilia is a psychosocial, historical phenomenon that will be studied for decades, I’m sure. We’re interested, today, in the political repercussions, wherein Trump, who could not be more obviously part of the Epstein crime factory, is throwing it all at the wall to hold on to a crowd who live and breathe conspiracy around precisely these things.

ABC (7/31/25)

So when you’re trying to break it down for people who have avoided this storyline, for various reasons, and are now just trying to get caught up, you need to explain a little history, right? Where do you start, if you want to orient someone to why the Jeffrey Epstein story would be the fissure in the MAGA crowd?

TH: To start with, everything makes sense if you get it that most of the followers of Donald Trump and the MAGA base are actually members of a cult. What differentiates people who live in a cult versus people who are just in normal society is that people who live in a cult live in a constructed reality that does not comport with actual reality. In other words, they are being lied to at a bunch of different levels, and they live in this unreal world. And, typically, it’s an unreal world that’s filled with panics, particularly moral panics.

So if you think back to the Reagan administration, the McMartin preschool, where for a year or so, everybody was convinced that the people were doing Satanic rituals with children and killing rabbits and stuff. And it turned out it was all imagination. But the whole nation was seized with this moral panic. This Pizzagate thing, you know, the Democrats are drinking the blood of children to get their adrenochrome and all this, is another moral panic.

And moral panics lend themselves to conspiracy theories. The McMartin preschool spun off 1,000 conspiracy theories.

Thom Hartmann: “You’ve got people who have been conditioned to live in a world of conspiracy theories.”

So you’ve got people who have been conditioned to live in a world of conspiracy theories. “The election in 2020 was actually stolen from Donald Trump.” “The fluoride in the water is a Communist conspiracy to destroy America.” On and on and on, right? And Jeffrey Epstein is one of the powerful people who control the world, and he’s part of this pedo ring, you know, this international pedo ring, and that probably has a lot of Jews associated with it, because usually these right-wing conspiracy theories are antisemitic, as well as everything else. “The Jews will not replace us,” the “Great Replacement Theory,” is another one. You know, the moral panic/conspiracy theory that Jewish people, wealthy Jews, are paying for Black and brown people to replace white people in their jobs and in education in America.

So what has happened is that Trump, during his campaign in 2016 and again in 2020, used Epstein as basically a foil, saying, “Yeah, you know Epstein? You know he had Bill Clinton on his plane, and he had Bill Gates on his plane, and it’s a bunch of him and a bunch of Democrats.”

And it’s a real testimonial to the power of Fox News to exclude data from the news that they’re sharing with their viewers, that these people never realized that Trump was Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend for a decade, and he’s all over the Epstein files, and any investigation of Epstein has Trump all over it.

And they just didn’t know this. And they were convinced that, when the truth comes out, Bill Clinton is going to get crucified here. And it’s starting to dawn on them that Trump maybe wasn’t the most honest with them, which may hopefully cause them to wonder about what are the other things that he lied to us about? Because there’s certainly a long list.

JJ: But is it really the case? I mean, they seem so separated from reality. And it, to me, it seems like if Trump said, “No, don’t look behind the curtain, actually,” well, as he’s said, “Those files are fake. These files are partial, anybody who says I’m involved….” I’m not sure why they wouldn’t fall for that too.

TH: Because they’ve been sold the counterstory. They’ve already bought the frame. The framework is that there’s this international network of pedophiles, and Epstein, of course, is Jewish. That helps as well. So you’ve got this frame that draws on racism, it draws on antisemitism, it draws on classical moral panic, and they have come to believe it, and it’s been reinforced over and over and over again for well over a decade. And it was conflated in their minds with the whole Pizzagate, Hillary Clinton, pedophile ring stuff.

Guardian (7/14/25)

And so, undoing that, you’d have to go back and say, “You know, what you’ve really believed for the last decade, that Donald Trump has been telling you, and Republicans have been telling you, and all these right-wing talkshow hosts and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, and they’ve all been telling you this, but you know, it was all wrong. It didn’t exist.” That’s just not going to fly. This is too well-established, too solidly established in their brains, for them to simply deny it or walk away from it, or look away from it, even.

JJ: Given that, I wonder what you make about so-called “mainstream media’s” response to this. Because this is obviously a kind of, like I say, sociological thing that’s happening that we can look at, the sort of petri dish of what happened with QAnon and the MAGA cult and their relationship to reality.

But we look to mainstream news media to see that as an event, and to incorporate that into the reality for, if I may say, the rest of us, you know? So I’m mad at news media for the implication that they can flip on and off the switch of outrage. You know, it was also mainstream news media who were like, “The Epstein files are very important. Well, no, they’re not so important. We’re not going to talk about them. Now they’re important again.”

TH: Going after Barack Obama, our first Black president, and calling him “Hussein” and all this other kind of stuff, you know, it’s just classic Trump racism, and that does play well with his base, because I think the one major common denominator that runs through his base is white supremacy, particularly male white supremacy, Christian male white supremacy.

But the mainstream media has acknowledged that Trump is in the Epstein files for years. It comes and goes as a media fad, but they’ve acknowledged it.

It’s just that the people who are the MAGA base, that 20% of the Republican Party, that maybe 7% or 8% of the American population, they’ve never experienced that, because they don’t read or listen to or watch the mainstream media. They live in this isolated bubble of Fox News, right-wing talk radio, and Breitbart on the internet.

And social media, of course, has really closed the door even tighter for them, by running algorithms that are designed to keep you in your bubble. Both Facebook and Twitter do that aggressively to make more money for their owners, of course. These people are just befuddled, baffled. And I think that’s something that we really should be taking notice of, how poorly informed the Republican base is.

New York Times (7/22/25)

JJ: I understand where right-wing media might be, but so-called “mainstream,” elite, corporate media, New York Times, Washington Post, they have a job to do, too, which is to locate this disinformation in a reality frame. And I guess I’m not seeing that. I guess my problem is I see things like “Trump Is Easing His Base’s Fury,” and that just seems like not telling us what we need to get from a free press, in terms of this nightmare, frankly, that we’re living through.

TH: I agree with you on that. I mean, the New York Times has been sanewashing Trump for years; this is what they do. Things that Trump has done and said recently, that had Joe Biden done them, would have been a full week’s news cycle, just largely get ignored. Just blatant lies, manufacturing stories, like the story about his uncle and the Unabomber. He literally just made it up out of thin air, and it was impossible. And yet the media did not harp on that. If Joe Biden had done that, if he had just made up a story out of nothing, they’d be calling for his impeachment or his resignation.

Trump has always had a special relationship with the media. Partly they’re afraid of him, partly they depend on him. He generates eyeballs and clicks and likes and views, and that makes them money.

JJ: You noted recently that the kind of “what aboutism” just isn’t landing this time, in terms of the Epstein story. When folks are saying, “Well, Clinton did it too,” people are like, “Well, yeah, OK, if Clinton did it too, he should also go to jail.” You can’t pluck the same thought-ending strings anymore, particularly with young people. And I see hope there.

CNBC (7/22/25)

TH: Yeah, I do too, and I think it certainly is the moment that some people, the hold of the cult on them has been weakened. You’ve got a dozen members, Republicans in the House of Representatives, who are willing to vote against Trump and demand the release of the Epstein files. This is why Mike Johnson just cut and ran, you know why he shut down for the end of this month, all of next month, and into the first week of September, is because he’s afraid of this topic coming up.

I think it’s going to backfire on him. I think it’s going to be just as hot in September. I think everybody’s going to kind of take a month off, and then just come back with some ferocity. But I could be wrong. It may be that Trump will actually succeed.

My big fear is that Trump will do what dictators are famous for doing when their approval ratings are in the tank. What Putin did, for example, with Ukraine, and what George W. Bush did with Iraq and Afghanistan, is he’ll declare a war someplace, as a way of distracting us. And that could be, particularly if he decides to go to war with China and Russia, that could be civilization-altering. I believe that Donald Trump will do anything to protect himself, and that’s the danger.

JJ: And I’ll just add, finally, that the way a lot of people will understand that danger will have to do with media. That will be the way that people understand what’s happening, and what it means for them. And news media are not neutral town criers, not to put too fine a point on it, but they are not simply telling us what’s happening; they’re also telling us how to feel about it, and I think, if we want to have a positive vision of what could come after, I just wonder, in terms of media, where do you think that conversation could happen?

FAIR.org (3/6/96)

TH: In my opinion, the big problem with media goes back to the Telecommunications Act of ‘96, and Reagan’s doing away of the Fairness Doctrine in ‘87, or in ‘86, I guess it was. Because we used to regulate how many radio stations an individual billionaire or a corporation could own, and not just radio stations–radio, television and newspapers.

And that all got blown up in ‘96, when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act. Within a year, Clear Channel had gone from being a little regional cluster of stations in the Southeast to having over 1,000 stations, and Sinclair Broadcasting now runs kind of a semi-monopoly.

And this CBS merger is another example of just insane monopolistic behavior that’s not good for America. It’s not good for business, it’s not good for the media, and it’s definitely not good for our democracy.

So that’s where my biggest concern lies right now, that and Brendan Carr being the head of the FCC, when he’s just an open Trump toady and will do whatever Donald Trump tells him to do, including investigating the big three networks, and all this other stuff that he’s doing right now.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Thom Hartmann. You can get started on his varied work online at HartmannReport.com, and the new book is The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink. That’s forthcoming from Penguin Random House. Thom Hartmann, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

TH: Thank you, Janine.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

“Iranian authorities must immediately clarify the legal basis for this mass detention of its citizens and cease treating those who communicate with the media as criminals,” said CPJ Chief Programs Officer Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Labeling ordinary Iranians as ‘operational agents’ simply for their association with a news outlet is a dangerous tactic of intimidation and a blatant escalation in Iran’s violations of press freedom.

Iran’s intelligence ministry had been monitoring “the so-called citizen-journalists of the Zionist-Terrorist International Network” – a term the government uses to describe London-based Iran International – during the June 13 to 24 Iran-Israel war, state-owned Mehr News Agency reported. The ministry then “arrested and summoned 98 affiliated operational agents,” the agency said on July 28.

The ministry provided no evidence to support its allegations and did not disclose the names, locations, or legal status of those detained or summoned.

The Islamic Republic has previously arrested Iranians working with international media on vague charges, such as for “collaborating with hostile states” or “propaganda against the state.”

Iran’s reformist Ham Mihan newspaper reported that more than 100 journalists had been fired in the aftermath of the 12-day war, as authorities have cracked down on critical voices, with hundreds of arrests and several executions. 

CPJ emailed Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York for comment but received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Each book is its own journey, but it’s been an exercise in time and patience. I got the deal in late 2022, and by January 1st, 2023, I had to sit down, roll up my sleeves, and start writing. A year and a half later, I had the full first draft.

I had started thinking about this project ten years ago when I published an initial feature on the Wall of Sound while on staff at Motherboard, Vice’s science and tech vertical. I had spent a year working on it, and it clocked in at around 9,000 words. By sheer coincidence, it ran during a series of shows celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary that generated additional attention. I remember thinking I’d gone so deep, “surely this will be the definitive take.” I quickly realized I had barely scratched the surface. I filed the idea away, but couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept gathering bits here and there, reading everything I could, staying obsessed. I couldn’t shake it. I was so captivated.

Why do you think?

If you don’t know, the Wall of Sound was a groundbreaking technology consisting of hundreds of speakers, dozens of amplifiers, custom staging, and scaffolding, and stood over three stories tall. It was between 70 and a hundred feet wide and 40 feet deep. It was a custom sound reinforcement system–like a public address or PA system–that The Dead and their circle of roadies, audio engineers, sound consultants, and technicians built over several years, beginning in the mid-sixties through 1974. It revolutionized sound reinforcement. To this day, if you see live music, from a stadium to a small punk club, you’ll see some principles first forged through the Wall of Sound. If you talk to anyone in the sound world–a sound technician, a recording engineer–they will know about the Wall of Sound.

I see why it was so inspiring.

From that first feature in Motherboard to the book’s publication, it’s been almost 10 years to the month. One thing I learned is that a project is going to take the time that it needs. There was a point in 2018, early 2019, when I started putting together an initial proposal. But the agent I was working with saw the book as something different, so nothing came of it, which I learned is a rite of passage.

Can you explain?

The first time you shop around a book proposal, you might not get any bites, and that can sting and be demoralizing. But if you feel strongly, you just have to keep going.

After that initial round of rejections, the final proposal took shape. The real lesson was that you’ll probably get rejected, and that’s just part of it the first time around. But you have to keep going. And if you get a great agent, which I am so grateful for, good things can happen.

That’s a great point.

I feel like I’ve been working on this book my whole life. Being raised by two Deadheads, this music was always in the background. But the TLDR is that it will take years from idea to proposal to landing the book deal and then actually writing it. It’s an ultra marathon, not a sprint. If you’re going to get impatient at all, this might not be the thing for you. But if you’re committed to the vision and in for the long haul, you can totally do it.

You have very specific insight into the Dead through your parents. Was it more complicated that this topic was such a part of your personal narrative?

A funny part of my book journey has been what I call being “an insider-outsider.” I’m not a Dead Instagram hype beast. I’m not even a music journalist, per se. I’ve been an editor for various science, tech, and health verticals at major publications. But at the same time, I’ve listened to this band my entire life and absorbed so much knowledge. I also just appreciate a good yarn, and I always knew this story was entertaining.

I’m not a Grateful Dead fan, but still found myself invested.

It’s a psychedelic romp and ultimately a story about obsession. This group had to put aside any interpersonal drama or tensions in the name of driving toward this greater collective good. But having something of a personal stake helped because I could thread the needle.

There have been dozens of books written about The Dead. It’s this massive cultural institution. For so many on the outside, it can be overwhelming. Many don’t even bother trying to find a way to enter this world and see what it’s about.

Right.

Having that personal angle helped tell a story in a way that folks who might think they have no interest will be able to understand and keep turning the page. St. Martin’s is a big five publisher for a general audience, so I had to keep that in mind. Having absorbed so much information throughout my life crystallized what aspects of Dead history and lore I had to mention and what I could dispense with.

You actually bought a piece of the Wall of Sound.

Yes! I came to own a part of it through a Sotheby’s auction in 2021. Sotheby’s had partnered with the Grateful Dead Organization to auction decommissioned items from the Grateful Dead Warehouse in Northern California. There were around 150 lots, and I didn’t bother looking through until there were 24 hours left until bidding closed. The night before, I started scrolling through, wondering which item had the lowest starting bid. That was this object. Having a piece of the Wall fall into my life got me reconnected with old sources, people I’d first spoken to years ago, and reaching out to entirely new sources. One thing led to another.

Kismet!

To own a part of it, it’s special. Thinking of all of the places this artifact has been, all the miles it clocked–tens, even hundreds of thousands–and all the people who experienced The Grateful Dead partly through this thing that’s sitting in my office, my mind reels. It gave me a unique window into this gigantic story. There’s a part that just feels cosmic, or fate.

Truly.

Another lesson was that you can have something as iconic as The Grateful Dead, where so many books have been written and so much scholarship, but still find unique windows in. I can’t believe nobody has written this book yet, and I’m the one who did it. As a writer, there’s this feeling that nothing is new anymore. Everything has been covered. Everything’s been written about and explored to death. But it’s not true. You can still find fresh and interesting avenues into storytelling. You have to trust the process and know it might take time.

As a journalism professor, you must have students hoping to write books. What advice do you give them?

There is this idea that the book proposal-to-book-to-docuseries pipeline is a surefire thing, and it will happen quickly. But no, the first and foremost thing is that it will take time, and that’s something you’ll have to make peace with early on. In the formative stages of getting your idea together, putting the proposal together, and getting an agent, it might be something you’ll need to chip away at on nights and weekends. Even if it doesn’t feel like you’re getting as much done as you would hope to in the beginning or throughout any stage of the process, it will add up if you keep chipping away. At a certain point, you will look back and think, “holy shit, I’ve come this far.”

One thing I did learn is that working on a book can completely consume you. You get sucked in, so you have to ride that fine line between being totally committed and being totally uncommitted. If you don’t watch out, it will take you. With all of the work that goes into this process, maybe you have the time and the resources to work on it solely, but I know I couldn’t. I had to work on editing while the proposal was coming together.

But a book deal with an advance can free you up to put your head down for that first full draft and focus entirely on that, if you want to. I’m not pretending to know everyone’s exact situation, but in my case, I did a lot of chipping away early on it, got an advance, and the pressure was off a bit.

Just giving you the time and space and the encouragement too.

It felt very validating when I got the book deal. When you’re putting a proposal together that, in your heart of hearts, you know is a good idea and are fully committed, even if it gets rejected. I always knew this was a good idea, but the time it takes to make these sorts of things happen, you go through stretches where it feels like it’s you against the world. It can feel isolating. But if you stick to it, it can happen.

There are various milestones along the way that feel validating. Much of it is just you out on the trail, and then every once in a while, you come to an intersection, and there’s someone holding up a sign that says “keep running” or “good job.” You see people hold up signs during marathons–that’s what it feels like because so much of the work is just getting up every day and chipping away.

In the book, I loved the character of Bear, the band’s original soundman and key architect of what would later become the Wall of Sound. I kept imagining his dogged perfectionism was a stand in for the entire creative process.

He was a polymath. He could drive the others in this scene crazy, but he was the original force behind the Wall of Sound. He also needed others to help actualize those ideas — sound engineers, technicians, and classically trained audiophiles. He was brilliant and largely self-taught, and the Wall of Sound couldn’t have existed without him.

It took the crew ten years to realize the Wall of Sound. There were fits and starts and trial and error. Many take credit for the Wall of Sound, and while it was a group creative effort, Bear was highly influential. He was sensitive to “unclean signals” in tech, which fed into his idea of a sound system without distortion. Basically, each player had their own PA. There was no “intermodulation distortion”–the technical term. No two sounds were running through the same speaker. So if you listen to the Wall of Sound recordings, the clarity is unmatched.

Some of the early shows would be delayed by up to five hours because he would freak out over a single amplifier. He claimed to be able to communicate with inanimate objects, such as sound system gear in this case. People would happen upon him hugging a speaker and crying and talking to it, trying to coax signals out of it. He was way out there but also a very brilliant creative person without whom none of this could probably have happened.

What an interesting man.

He was obsessed with audio, but also a ballet dancer. He produced millions of hits of LSD and basically turned on that entire generation. So much of the acid flowing through the Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love, and then throughout the rest of the country, was manufactured by Bear and his assistants. He also got obsessed with metallurgy. He would go in deep and bring in everyone.

There’s a great quote from the late Steve Silverman, a New York Times bestselling science writer and an OG Wired writer who wrote the book that changed the conversation around autism and the spectrum, called Neuro Tribes. He noted, “I spent some time with Bear at a Grateful Dead studies conference back in the day, and came away convinced that he was on the spectrum in the best possible way.” Silverman said that the Wall of Sound is, he would consider, the most outstanding achievement of the neurodivergent community. That neurodivergent folks and neurotypicals came together and forged this groundbreaking piece of technology.

It’s interesting how much emotion this system of inanimate objects contained, and how much work went into building it. Obviously there’s a great metaphor in there for completing a book.

Talking about the process and the journey, putting this thing together in terms of the sheer timeline and the community–it takes everyone from your editor to your agents, friends, and acquaintances who often would listen to me, being a little harebrained, working through it. It takes all those people to realize something like this. I didn’t always think this would be something that would happen one day, but like everything else, it’s just a progression and then one day you realize “oh shit.” If you are committed and put in the time, patience, and work, you really can make these things happen.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Laura Feinstein.

Both the Biden EPA standards to reduce pollution from cars and trucks and the Obama EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding were based on overwhelming scientific evidence that has only become more robust. The proposals, if adopted, will create more pollution and lock in more damage to our air and climate in the future.

“This cynical one-two punch allows Trump’s Flat Earth EPA to slam the brakes on reducing auto pollution and ignore urgent warnings from the world’s leading scientists about the need for climate action,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “By revoking this key scientific finding Trump is putting fealty to Big Oil over sound science and people’s health. These proposals are a giant gift to oil companies that will do real damage to people, wildlife and future generations. The administration can’t even pretend the science facts have changed. It’s purely a political bow to the oil industry.”

Revoking life-saving clean air standards that slash auto pollution will allow automakers to make cars that guzzle more gas and pollute more. Rescinding the endangerment finding will make it harder for federal agencies to take steps that cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution from cars, trucks, power plants, factories and agriculture.

The administration falsely claims that U.S. pollution doesn’t matter. The United States is the second-largest carbon polluter in the world after China, and the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gasses. The U.S. emitted 11% of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2021, and during Trump’s first term his administration admitted that emissions in excess of 3% were “significant.”

“This is the most pro-combustion administration since Nero. Trump is delivering higher gas pump sales to Big Oil and higher gas pump costs and unhealthy air to us and our kids,” said Becker. “To famous lies like ‘cigarettes don’t cause cancer,’ we can now add Trump’s claim that pollution from millions of cars is healthier than rules cleaning them up. Trump’s lies have serious consequences, and this one is far worse than taking a Sharpie to a hurricane map. Generations of Americans will suffer because of it.”

The vehicle rules Trump plans to scrap would cut 7 billion metric tons of emissions and saved the average American driver $6,000 in fuel and maintenance costs over the lifetimes of the vehicles made under the standards.

“The EPA is revoking the biggest single step any nation has taken to save oil, save consumers money at the pump and combat global warming. The Trump administration’s actions will worsen heart and lung disease, sicken kids with asthma, and stoke deadly wildfires, storms and floods,” Becker said. “It’s outrageous to justify this recklessness with the ridiculous claim that cutting planet-warming pollution is more expensive than the billions it will cost consumers at the pump and the hospital because of climate devastation. We’ll fight them every step of the way.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

• Common Cause blasts Texas, California congressional redistricting plans, saying “you can’t fight gerrymandering with more gerrymandering“;
• Deported Palestinian peace activist and filmmaker killed by Israeli settler in Occupied West Bank;
• Fresno activists hold “Unheard Echoes, Silencing Due Process” on immigration policies in central valley;
• Britain will recognize Palestinian State unless Israel addresses Gaza humanitarian crisis;
• EPA to repeal “endangerment finding” that underpins federal climate regulations

The post Common Cause blasts TX, CA redistricting proposals, “you can’t fight gerrymandering with more gerrymandering”; Deported Palestinian filmmaker killed by settler in Occupied West Bank – July 29, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

In the viral clip, the husband along with two policemen, catch the wife with the lover. The husband informs the cops that the two have been conspiring to kill him and shows them evidence. The man tells the police that his name is Gaurav, but while checking his phone and investigating, they discover that his name is actually Salim and that he is married. The wife seems unaware of this.

On July 15, 2025, X user @KreatelyMedia, which has spread misinformation in the past, shared this video and wrote, “Gaurav turned out to be Salim”.

गौरव निकला सलीम pic.twitter.com/wIayCHjTRd

— Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) July 15, 2025

A YouTube channel called The Star Network News shared the video on July 16, 2025. The video’s Hindi title roughly translates to: “Husband catches wife with lover, wife threatens to kill, Gaurav turned out to be a married man named Salim”. It is worth noting that this is not the official Star Network account, but the channel uses the Star News logo.

Numerous other X users shared the video and claimed that Salim had changed his name and was living with a married woman named Gaurav.

Facebook users, including a page titled Bundel Khand Live, also shared the video. Apart from this, this footage was also shared on Instagram with similar claims.

Fact Check

Upon taking a closer look at the viral video, Alt News noticed that one of the men posing as a policeman is actually a content creator named Deepak Sharma, who makes entertainment videos. We have previously written about scripted videos made by Sharma, featuring him, that have been shared with false claims.

We found the source video posted on the Facebook page and YouTube channel of “Monty Deepak Sharma” as well as the Facebook page “Actor Monty Sharma”. The original video is about 10 minutes long. It is worth noting that the creator has not added any disclaimer here that this is a scripted video.

Upon further investigation, we also found a video of the same skit shot from a different angle on Deepak Sharma’s Instagram account “Monty Deepak Sharma” and a Facebook page named “Actor Monty Sharma“.

In this, a disclaimer appears at the 00:03-minute mark in the video. It states that this is a work of fiction and made for entertainment purposes. However, the disclaimer appears for less than a second, which means the audience will barely be able to read it or notice it.

The actors seen in the viral video also appear in many other scripted videos.

In other words, the viral video is scripted and the saga of Gaurav or Salim’s so-called affair is fictional. Several social media users fell for the misleading nature of the content, which does not carry apt disclaimers, making it . seem like a real incident. Alt News has seen several instances in the past wherein scripted videos have been misused to target a particular community.

The post Video of wife ‘cheating’ on husband viral with communal claims that lover hid Muslim identity is actually scripted appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

One afternoon in mid-September, a group of middle school girls in rural East Tennessee decided to film a TikTok video while waiting to begin cheerleading practice.

In the 45-second video posted later that day, one girl enters the classroom holding a cellphone. “Put your hands up,” she says, while a classmate flickers the lights on and off. As the camera pans across the classroom, several girls dramatically fall back on a desk or the floor and lie motionless, pretending they were killed.

When another student enters and surveys the bodies on the ground in poorly feigned shock, few manage to suppress their giggles. Throughout the video, which ProPublica obtained, a line of text reads: “To be continued……”

Penny Jackson’s 11-year-old granddaughter was one of the South Greene Middle School cheerleaders who played dead. She said the co-captains told her what to do and she did it, unaware of how it would be used. The next day, she was horrified when the police came to school to question her and her teammates.

By the end of the day, the Greene County Sheriff’s Department charged her and 15 other middle school cheerleaders with disorderly conduct for making and posting the video. Standing outside the school’s brick facade, Lt. Teddy Lawing said in a press conference that the girls had to be “held accountable through the court system” to show that “this type of activity is not warranted.” The sheriff’s office did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about the incident.

Widespread fear of school shootings is colliding with algorithms that accelerate the spread of the most outrageous messages to cause chaos across the country. Social videos, memes and retweets are becoming fodder for criminal charges in an era of heightened responses to student threats. Authorities say harsh punishment is crucial to deter students from making threatening posts that multiply rapidly and obscure their original source.

In many cases, especially in Tennessee, police are charging students for jokes and misinterpretations, drawing criticism from families and school violence prevention experts who believe a measured approach is more appropriate. Students are learning the hard way that they can’t control where their social media messages travel. In central Tennessee last fall, a 16-year-old privately shared a video he created using artificial intelligence, and a friend forwarded it to others on Snapchat. The 16-year-old was expelled and charged with threatening mass violence, even though his school acknowledged the video was intended as a private joke.

Other students have been charged with felonies for resharing posts they didn’t create. As ProPublica wrote in May, a 12-year-old in Nashville was arrested and expelled this year for sharing a screenshot of threatening texts on Instagram. He told school officials he was attempting to warn others and wanted to “feel heroic.”

In Greene County, the cheerleaders’ video sent waves through the small rural community, especially since it was posted several days after the fatal Apalachee High School shooting one state away. The Georgia incident had spawned thousands of false threats looping through social media feeds across the country. Lawing told ProPublica and WPLN at the time that his officers had fielded about a dozen social media threats within a week and struggled to investigate them. “We couldn’t really track back to any particular person,” he said.

But the cheerleaders’ video, with their faces clearly visible, was easy to trace.

Jackson understands that the video was in “very poor taste,” but she believes the police overreacted and traumatized her granddaughter in the process. “I think they blew it completely out of the water,” she said. “To me, it wasn’t serious enough to do that, to go to court.”

That perspective is shared by Makenzie Perkins, the threat assessment supervisor of Collierville Schools, outside of Memphis. She is helping her school district chart a different path in managing alleged social media threats. Perkins has sought specific training on how to sort out credible threats online from thoughtless reposts, allowing her to focus on students who pose real danger instead of punishing everyone.

The charges in Greene County, she said, did not serve a real purpose and indicate a lack of understanding about how to handle these incidents. “You’re never going to suspend, expel or charge your way out of targeted mass violence,” she said. “Did those charges make that school safer? No.”

When 16-year-old D.C. saw an advertisement for an AI video app last October, he eagerly downloaded it and began roasting his friends. In one video he created, his friend stood in the Lincoln County High School cafeteria, his mouth and eyes moving unnaturally as he threatened to shoot up the school and bring a bomb in his backpack. (We are using D.C.’s initials and his dad’s middle name to protect their privacy, because D.C. is a minor.)

D.C. sent it to a private Snapchat group of about 10 friends, hoping they would find it hilarious. After all, they had all teased this friend about his dark clothes and quiet nature. But the friend did not think it was funny. That evening, D.C. showed the video to his dad, Alan, who immediately made him delete it as well as the app. “I explained how it could be misinterpreted, how inappropriate it was in today’s climate,” Alan recalled to ProPublica.

It was too late. One student in the chat had already copied D.C.’s video and sent it to other students on Snapchat, where it began to spread, severed from its initial context.

That evening, a parent reported the video to school officials, who called in local police to do an investigation. D.C. begged his dad to take him to the police station that night, worried the friend in the video would get in trouble — but Alan thought it could wait until morning.

The next day, D.C. rushed to school administrators to explain and apologize. According to Alan, administrators told D.C. they “understood it was a dumb mistake,” uncharacteristic for the straight-A student with no history of disciplinary issues. In a press release, Lincoln County High School said administrators were “made aware of a prank threat that was intended as a joke between friends.”

But later that day, D.C. was expelled from school for a year and charged with a felony for making a threat of mass violence. As an explanation, the sheriff’s deputy wrote in the affidavit, “Above student did create and distribute a video on social media threatening to shoot the school and bring a bomb.”

During a subsequent hearing where D.C. appealed his school expulsion, Lincoln County Schools administrators described their initial panic when seeing the video. Alan shared an audio recording of the hearing with ProPublica. Officials didn’t know that the video was generated by AI until the school counselor saw a small logo in the corner. “Everybody was on pins and needles,” the counselor said at the hearing. “What are we going to do to protect the kids or keep everybody calm the next day if it gets out?” The school district declined to respond to ProPublica’s questions about how officials handled the incident, even though Alan signed a privacy waiver giving them permission to do so.

Alan watched D.C. wither after his expulsion: His girlfriend broke up with him, and some of his friends began to avoid him. D.C. lay awake at night looking through text messages he sent years ago, terrified someone decades later would find something that could ruin his life. “If they are punishing him for creating the image, when does his liability expire?” Alan wondered. “If it’s shared again a year from now, will he be expelled again?”

Alan, a teacher in the school district, coped by voraciously reading court cases and news articles that could shed light on what was happening to his son. He stumbled on a case hundreds of miles north in Pennsylvania, the facts of which were eerily similar to D.C.’s.

In April 2018, two kids, J.S. and his friend, messaged back and forth mocking another student by suggesting he looked like a school shooter. (The court record uses J.S. instead of his full name to protect the student’s anonymity.) J.S. created two memes and sent them to his friend in a private Snapchat conversation. His friend shared the memes publicly on Snapchat, where they were seen by 20 to 40 other students. School administrators permanently expelled J.S., so he and his parents sued the school.

In 2021, after a series of appeals, Pennsylvania’s highest court ruled in J.S.’s favor. While the memes were “mean-spirited, sophomoric, inartful, misguided, and crude,” the state Supreme Court justices wrote in their opinion, they were “plainly not intended to threaten Student One, Student Two, or any other person.”

The justices also shared their sympathy with the challenges schools faced in providing a “safe and quality educational experience” in the modern age. “We recognize that this charge is compounded by technological developments such as social media, which transcend the geographic boundaries of the school. It is a thankless task for which we are all indebted.”

After multiple disciplinary appeals, D.C.’s school upheld the decision to keep him out of school for a year. His parents found a private school that agreed to let him enroll, and he slowly emerged from his depression to continue his straight-A streak there. His charge in court was dismissed in December after he wrote a 500-word essay for the judge on the dangers of social media, according to Alan.

Thinking back on the video months later, D.C. explained that jokes about school violence are common among his classmates. “We try to make fun of it so that it doesn’t seem as serious or like it could really happen,” he said. “It’s just so widespread that we’re all desensitized to it.”

He wonders if letting him back to school would have been more effective in deterring future hoax threats. “I could have gone back to school and said, ‘You know, we can’t make jokes like that because you can get in big trouble for it,’” he said. “I just disappeared for everyone at that school.”

When a school district came across an alarming post on Snapchat in 2023, officials reached out to Safer Schools Together, an organization that helps educators handle school threats. In the post, a pistol flanked by two assault rifles lay on a rumpled white bedsheet. The text overlaid on the photo read, “I’m shooting up central I’m tired of getting picked on everyone is dying tomorrow.”

Steven MacDonald, training manager and development director for Safer Schools Together, recounted this story in a virtual tutorial posted last year on using online tools to trace and manage social media threats. He asked the school officials watching his tutorial what they would do next. “How do we figure out if this is really our student’s bedroom?”

According to MacDonald, it took his organization’s staff only a minute to put the text in quotation marks and run it through Google. A single local news article popped up showing that two kids had been arrested for sharing this exact Snapchat post in Columbia, Tennessee — far from the original district.

“We were able to reach out and respond and say, ‘You know what, this is not targeting your district,’” MacDonald said. Administrators were reassured there was a low likelihood of immediate violence, and they could focus on finding out who was recirculating the old threat and why.

In the training video, MacDonald reviewed skills that, until recently, have been more relevant to police investigators than school principals: How to reverse image search photos of guns to determine whether a post contains a stock image. How to use Snapchat to find contact names for unknown phone numbers. How to analyze the language in the social media posts of a high-risk student.

“We know that why you’re here is because of the increase and the sheer volume of these threats that you may have seen circulated, the non-credible threats that might have even ended up in your districts,” he said. Between last April and this April, Safer Schools Together identified drastic increases in “threat related behavior” and graphic or derogatory social media posts.

Back in the Memphis suburbs, Perkins and other Collierville Schools administrators have attended multiple digital threat assessment training sessions hosted by Safer Schools Together. “I’ve had to learn a lot more apps and social media than I ever thought,” Perkins said.

The knowledge, she said, came in handy during one recent incident in her district. Local police called the district to report that a student had called 911 and reported an Instagram threat targeting a particular school. They sent Perkins a photo of the Instagram profile and username. She began using open source websites to scour the internet for other appearances of the picture and username. She also used a website that allows people to view Instagram stories without alerting the user to gather more information.

With the help of police, Perkins and her team identified that the post was created by someone at the same IP address as the student who had reported the threat. The girl, who was in elementary school, confessed to police that she had done it.

The next day, Perkins and her team interviewed the student, her parents and teachers to understand her motive and goal. “It ended up that there had been some recent viral social media threats going around,” Perkins said. “This individual recognized that it drew in a lot of attention.”

Instead of expelling the girl, school administrators worked with her parents to develop a plan to manage her behavior. They came up with ideas for the girl to receive positive attention while stressing to her family that she had exhibited “extreme behavior” that signaled a need for intensive help. By the end of the day, they had tamped down concerns about immediate violence and created a plan of action.

In many other districts, Perkins said, the girl might have been arrested and expelled for a year without any support — which does not help move students away from the path of violence. “A lot of districts across our state haven’t been trained,” she said. “They’re doing this without guidance.”

Watching the cheerleaders’ TikTok video, it would be easy to miss Allison Bolinger, then the 19-year-old assistant coach. The camera quickly flashes across her standing and smiling in the corner of the room watching the pretend-dead girls.

Bolinger said she and the head coach had been next door planning future rehearsals. Bolinger entered the room soon after the students began filming and “didn’t think anything of it.” Cheerleading practice went forward as usual that afternoon. The next day, she got a call from her dad: The cheerleaders were suspended from school, and Bolinger would have to answer questions from the police.

“I didn’t even know the TikTok was posted. I hadn’t seen it,” she said. “By the time I went to go look for it, it was already taken down.” Bolinger said she ended up losing her job as a result of the incident. She heard whispers around the small community that she was responsible for allowing them to create the video.

Bolinger said she didn’t realize the video was related to school shootings when she was in the room. She often wishes she had asked them at the time to explain the video they were making. “I have beat myself up about that so many times,” she said. “Then again, they’re also children. If they don’t make it here, they’ll probably make it at home.”

Jackson, the grandmother of the 11-year-old in the video, blames Bolinger for not stopping the middle schoolers and faults the police for overreacting. She said all the students, whether or not their families hired a lawyer, got the same punishment in court: three months of probation for a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, which could be extended if their grades dropped or they got in trouble again. Each family had to pay more than $100 in court costs, Jackson said, a significant amount for some.

Jackson’s granddaughter successfully completed probation, which also involved writing and submitting a letter of apology to the judge. She was too scared about getting in trouble again to continue on the cheerleading team for the rest of the school year.

Jackson thinks that officials’ outsize response to the video made everything worse. “They shouldn’t even have done nothing until they investigated it, instead of making them out to be terrorists and traumatizing these girls,” she said.

Paige Pfleger of WPLN/Nashville Public Radio contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Aliyya Swaby.

An activist on board the Handala, a Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship carrying aid to the besieged enclave in a bid to break Israel’s blockade, says the crew are preparing themselves for the possibility of Israeli forces storming the vessel.

Jacob Berger, an actor from the US, made the comments to Al Jazeera Arabic from on board the Handala, which set sail from Gallipoli, Italy last Sunday.

The ship is currently off the coast of Egypt in international waters on its route to Gaza.

• READ MORE: The Freedom Flotilla Coalition web page

The Handala is the latest ship sent by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) in its mission to break Israel’s Gaza blockade amid the devastating starvation regime imposed on the terrotory by Israeli forces.

The FFC’s previous mission ended when its ship, the Madleen, was intercepted by the Israeli military, who boarded the vessel and arrested the activists on board illegally in international waters on June 9.

The Handala’s live location tracker shows it is nearing the area where the Madleen was intercepted by Israel.

Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that 16 Israeli military drones had been spotted flying near the vessel overnight.

In a message via Instagram, another crew member, Thiago Avila, said that the Handala mission was about to cross the location — around 110 nautical miles — “where we were intercepted one month ago with the Madleen trying to break the siege of Gaza and create a humanitarian sea corridor that could stop famine”.

Avila added that Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had already warned that he intended to “commit another war crime tonight [by] kidnapping our participants and illegally stopping a humanitarian mission heading to Gaza despite the strict prohibition from the International Court of Justice on its provisional rulings.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Making matters worse, ADF is actively involved in at least one case, Heaps v. Delaware Valley Regional High School Board of Education, that is set to come before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That means, if confirmed, Bove could preside over cases involving an organization he consulted with during his nomination process – a fundamental breach of judicial ethics.

“The red flags on Emil Bove’s judicial nomination are piling up. Bove has shown unflinching loyalty to his former client and current boss, Donald Trump; has refused to commit to recusing himself on cases involving the President; and is the subject of a whistleblower complaint casting doubt on his integrity and highlighting his lack of respect for the law. Now it’s clear that he has also conferred with a far-right legal organization that has matters before the court on which he would serve,” said Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone. “Bove has repeatedly disregarded the ethical standards of the federal judiciary and the rule of law – his lifetime appointment opens the door for the President and his allies to seek out favorable rulings, no matter how unconstitutional their actions may be. Trust in the judiciary is at an all-time low because of repeated ethical lapses. If the Senate confirms Bove, it will undermine the credibility of the court even further.”

It’s just the latest disqualification for Bove, who is under a whistleblower investigation for misconduct while at the Department of Justice, and has come to be known as the Administration's “hatchet man.” Earlier this month, an Accountable.US research report revealed that Bove has not committed to key recusals ahead of his nomination hearing. In a nomination form, Bove pledged to recuse himself from “situations that present actual conflicts of interest based on my current or prior positions at the Department of Justice” – but he’s refrained from preemptively recusing himself from any future case involving his former client and current boss, Donald Trump.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Upcoming ISA meetings must secure a moratorium and leave no room for rushed attempts to adopt a Mining Code. Recent developments have made it clear that outstanding political and scientific concerns cannot be hastily resolved under external or industry-driven pressure.

Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson, who attended the meeting, said: “Governments have yet to rise to the moment. They remain disconnected from global concerns and the pressing need for courageous leadership to protect the deep ocean. We call on the international community to rise up and defend multilateralism against rogue actors like The Metals Company. Governments must respond by establishing a moratorium and reaffirming that authority over the international seabed lies collectively with all States—for the benefit of humanity as a whole."

While calls for a moratorium on deep sea mining have not yet gained global consensus, they continue to gain momentum, supported by compelling arguments from a diverse group of countries. Croatia became the 38th government calling for a precautionary pause, moratorium or ban on deep sea mining.

On Tuesday, His Excellency Surangel S. Whipps Jr., President of the Republic of Palau, addressed the Assembly, drawing attention to persistent efforts and intense pressure from the industry to rush the negotiations and finalise a Mining Code. He stated: “Exploiting the seabed is not a necessity – it is a choice. And it is reckless. It is gambling with the future of Pacific Island children, who will inherit the dire consequences of decisions made far from their shores”

In the first meeting of the ISA since The Metals Company (TMC) submitted the world’s first-ever application to commercially mine the international seabed, governments at the ISA Council responded by launching an investigation into whether mining contractors, including TMC’s subsidiaries Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI) and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), are complying with contractual obligations to act following the international legal framework.

Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, speaking on behalf of the French government, defended multilateralism and reaffirmed France’s call for a moratorium: “Our message is clear: no deep-sea mining without science, without collective legitimacy, without equity [...] France is calling for a moratorium or a precautionary pause. What for? Because we refuse to mortgage the future for a few nodules extracted in a hurry, in favour of a few”.

Pacific Leader representing Solomon Island, addressed the ISA Assembly, she said: “As Pacific people, we continue to carry the trauma of what extractive industries have already done to our homes. Mining companies that came with promises, stripped our lands and waters, and left behind ecological, cultural, and spiritual scars. We cannot let that cycle repeat itself, in the ocean that connects us. That sustains us. And that defines us”.

Greenpeace warns that unilateral action to start deep sea mining risks triggering conflict and undermining decades-old agreements and norms that have guided state behaviour in the global ocean. In response, governments must act by establishing a moratorium and reaffirming that authority over the international seabed lies collectively with all nations—for the benefit of humankind as a whole.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Janine Jackson interviewed the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ Iman Abid about the economy of genocide for the July 18, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Al Jazeera (7/1/25)

Janine Jackson: Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, has called down all manner of official and unofficial grief for saying what any thinking person would know: that a mass extermination and displacement project, such as Israel is carrying out in Palestine, doesn’t fund itself.

As US citizens, we know we’re involved, that our “tax dollars” are used by politicians we may or may not have elected to do things that we don’t condone, much less endorse. But what US elite news media seem to hate above all things is the connecting of dots, the recognition that we are all related across borders and boundaries.

That the thing that brought US sanction was Albanese’s naming of defense companies providing weapons used by Israel’s military, makers of equipment used to bulldoze Palestinian homes, is telling. Watching corporate media try to maintain the notion that, yes, Citizens United said money is speech, and you can’t curtail that, but no, you absolutely cannot say that people might not want to support companies who are funding a genocide. Well, that’s telling about media as well.

Joining us now to talk about this is Iman Abid. She’s director of advocacy and organizing at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Iman Abid.

Iman Abid: Thank you so much.

JJ: The statement in Albanese’s report, “While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many”—I mean, it’s only in a weird world of elite media that that would be something that you can’t say. That should just be a point of information in our understanding, yes?

IA: At any point in time that we target or uplift the war crimes that these large corporations are partaking in, we’ve seen just how silenced or suppressed people are, and Francesca has now been a part of that. She’s brought a lot to light in this new document that has come out, information that many people, in various forms, have already uplifted, but has done a really incredible job at trying to both consolidate and make the information a lot more accessible. And so, since it is a lot more digestible to see, it’s easier to access. Weapons manufacturers and large corporations have been extremely disappointed in what the world is able to finally see.

Iman Abid: “Weapons manufacturers and large corporations have been extremely disappointed in what the world is able to finally see.” (Photo: Thomas Morrisey, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.)

JJ: Right. Transparency is their enemy.

IA: Yeah, exactly.

JJ: And you would think that journalists—whatever they want to say about it—would support the idea that the public can understand exactly what’s happening. And yet that’s not the response that we’ve seen, from certainly the US officially, but also from journalists. I don’t feel that they are celebrating this report in a way that one would hope.

IA: Absolutely. I think that the reality is that much of the documentation, and the notes that are provided to us for review in this report, showcase not just what has been going on, and what corporations have been enacting for the last two years, throughout the duration of the genocide, but rather for the last few decades. This information has been available to the public, available to journalists and reporters, for a really long time, and for whatever reason, people generally choose to still avoid it.

Now, whether or not they themselves—certain news outlets have partnerships with some of these corporations, and they’re keeping them quiet for that purpose, or if there’s any other reason where maybe they as individuals are profiting off of these corporations themselves, we’ve seen just how silent people are when it comes to uplifting the harms of these corporations.

JJ: What do you hope or think might be the impact? Because it seems, obviously, Marco Rubio saying, “Ah! Shut up! Sanctions!” is telling that this information is important. What do you hope might be used? How do you think it might be used?

IA: My hope is that, especially for the American people, in any point in time, when this administration tries to silence someone, when they implement sanctions or any of that, I really encourage people to take a look at their work. And Francesca Albanese is an incredibly profound, extraordinary being who has spent their career building up and bringing awareness to the atrocities happening to the Palestinian people. This report is only one aspect of the work that she’s been so committed to.

NPR (7/10/25)

And I think that people like Marco Rubio, and other people within the Trump administration, don’t want you to see this, because they themselves are, again, establishing partnerships, or have established partnerships, with these corporations. And even some of the members of Congress, who have also uplifted and supported the sanctions on Francesca Albanese, some of them are war profiteers. They are the ones who are both building up the contracts with the federal government, or supporting the contracts with the federal government, to keep these corporations alive and thriving.

I think the report itself mentions on every single page just how Palestine is being used as this sort of military technology incubator. It’s an opportunity for these companies to use their work, and to see how it works on the Palestinian people. They’re almost using us as dispensable objects for their weapons. And I think that a lot of that is uplifted in this document.

And because of the atrocities that are being highlighted, and because of the direct connection to the United States Congress, the United States administration, it just shows an incredibly bad light on the US. And it also showcases just how harmful the partnerships and the military investment really is, across not only the US, but across the globe.

JJ: Elite media seem vigorously invested in policing lines between “us” and “them,” but it’s not working. Support for Palestinian human rights is growing, even as it’s being seriously criminalized. So where are you seeing daylight? Because I see a lot of people being extremely brave and using information, such as in this Albanese report, to say, “We’re armed. We’re armed with information, and we’re not going to buy the line that we’re being sold.”

IA: Absolutely. I think the movement has grown exponentially, and I think it’s simply because of the fact that we have watched this livestreamed genocide take place. And I think that when people see the level of death, when people see the level of atrocity, especially for those who’ve sat on social media platforms and watched the video footage and documentation of what’s been happening across Gaza, it’s become extremely difficult to deny what’s actually happening.

And people are moved. People are moved to speak up, people are moved to stand up, even against the faces of oppression, the Zionist forces that are trying to silence people, and they’re choosing to say that I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, I want to take a stand on this, and not just a stand in the streets, but a strategic stand that allows me and my community to actually move towards getting this genocide to end, and for us to stop upholding these atrocities being committed against Palestinians.

Al Jazeera (6/26/24)

It’s been deeply fortunate that so many reports have come out, even just the last two years alone, not only of the weapons that have been used on Palestinians, but just what specific correlation there is between the US, the complicity of the US, and what’s been happening across Gaza and the rest of the West Bank, and even in parts of Jerusalem. And so people are starting to really see that direct line between themselves as US taxpayers, and where and what their money is being spent on, and just how it’s actually being used to abuse, assault and murder Palestinians. And people don’t want to be on that side. People don’t want to be complicit. I don’t think anyone wants to be complicit in war crimes being committed, and mass genocides being committed.

And so I think we’re starting to see just how people are really trying to take that next step, and acknowledge there are different avenues that people can take to really get things to stop. And whether it’s the targeting of weapons manufacturers like Caterpillar or Hyundai or Elbit, whoever is actually equipping Israel with the technology and the software and the technology that’s being used to destroy homes, whatever it may be, people are using these sorts of reports to help uplift the documentation that already exists, to bring attention to these corporations that we, as the United States, as US taxpayers, are investing in.

And they’re choosing to say that we don’t want this. We don’t want this to continue. And we, again, as taxpayers can do something about it.

JJ: And I’ll end on the media thing, that it calls out the media hypocrisy, because when folks were pouring out their Bud Light because they had a trans person in an ad, media were sort of celebrating: Oh, you’re using your consumer voice, you’re speaking with your dollars, right? And then out of the other side of their mouth, they want to say, Well, BDS is criminal. You’re not allowed to not shop at a store, or whatever, that supports genocide. So to me, it tells the tale on US media’s understanding of what a consumer gets to do with their voice.

IA: Absolutely. Again, yes, the exceptionalizing of Palestine, the exceptionalizing of the BDS movement, still exists, but we are seeing a shift. We are seeing people break beyond that, and actually start to question and start to ask themselves, why has the BDS movement actually existed for as long as it has?

Again, boycotting, divestment, sanctions is not an area that’s just particular to the Palestinian movement. It’s been used with South Africa, it’s been used in other parts of the world, because it is something that actually works. When we stop the transfer of dollars to these corporations, and to these entities like Israel that are actually upholding the genocide and the mass expulsion of Palestinians, we do start to see the shifting of it.

Mondoweiss (5/8/25)

And the Israeli economy, as a matter of fact, is actually beginning to decline, because of the level of education and the expansion of the Palestinian solidarity movement across the globe. And people are trying to be wiser about where they’re spending their dollars. And so I think that we’re not in the exact place we want to be just yet, but we are moving the needle towards where we want to go, and people are being wiser about where money is going.

And so while governments and elected officials are really still working hard to suppress any sort of BDS movement, whether it’s through the anti-BDS proposals, or if it’s through the sanctioning of certain individuals, the people themselves are starting to actually say: “Well, wait a minute. Why are you choosing to suppress us for engaging in this, when we know it’s the right thing to do?”

And members of Congress are starting to be a little more alert, and start to say, “Wait a minute, this isn’t actually a winning issue for me if I choose to engage in it. And it’s not necessarily something that I should really be pushing for.” Because people are becoming more attentive. And it’s allowing us, again, to move the needle where we really want to see us going.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Iman Abid from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. They’re online at USCPR.org. Iman Abid, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

IA: Thank you so much.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

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We updated our Supreme Connections database with newly released financial disclosures from eight Supreme Court justices on Friday, covering the 2024 calendar year.

Supreme Connections is our database that makes it easy for anyone to browse justices’ financial disclosures and to search for connections to people and companies mentioned within them.

This update includes disclosures filed in May and made public late last month. Justice Samuel Alito received a 90-day extension, and his disclosure is expected later this summer.

The latest update details millions in book income, almost 40 trips and one gift.

Among the disclosures:

• Justice Clarence Thomas’ 2024 disclosure listed no gifts or travel reimbursements. In 2023, a ProPublica investigation revealed that Thomas was a frequent recipient of luxury travel and gifts from billionaire benefactors — and that he often failed to disclose them.
• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reported a $2.07 million advance from Penguin Random House for her memoir, “Lovely One,” published in 2024. She also disclosed more than a dozen reimbursed trips to cities including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Seattle, Chicago and Boston, mostly in connection with her book tour.
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor disclosed a $60,000 book advance and over $73,000 in additional royalty payments, also from Penguin Random House. She listed eight reimbursed trips from various universities, including international travel to Panama City, Zurich and Vienna, as well as a $1,437 gift from the Coterie Theatre in Kansas City, Mo.
• Justice Neil Gorsuch reported $250,000 in royalties from HarperCollins, plus income from teaching at George Mason University. He took at least six paid-for trips, including international travel to Germany and Portugal, and domestic stops in Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Williamsburg, Virginia.
• Justice Amy Coney Barrett received $31,815 in teaching income from the University of Notre Dame and reported three trips, including travel to Malibu, California, and two visits to Notre Dame.
• Justice Brett Kavanaugh reported $31,815 in teaching income from Notre Dame and listed two trips there.
• Justice Elena Kagan reported a trip to New York City for a speech at New York University.
• Chief Justice John Roberts disclosed two reimbursed trips: one to Galway, Ireland, and another to West Point, New York, for events hosted by New England Law and the United States Military Academy, respectively.

We’ve also added new ways to view the justices’ investment holdings. Previously, investments were sorted by value. Now, you can group investments by account to see how justices structure their holdings, or you can sort investments by the order in which they appear on the original disclosure forms, making it easier to cross-reference our data to the original filings.

Browse the database to learn more.

Do you have any tips on the Supreme Court? Josh Kaplan can be reached by email at joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sergio Hernandez.

The story uses only screenshots and not the actual video in question in view of the extremely graphic nature of the footage. 

A video is being widely shared on WhatsApp in which the bodies of seven children and a middle-aged woman can be seen lying on the floor of a room soaked in blood. A living person is also seen lying near the body of a child on a cot. Women can be heard wailing. It is being claimed that in some area of Uttar Pradesh, members of RSS and Bajrang Dal entered Muslim homes and slaughtered people.

Alt News has received at least 30 requests on its WhatsApp helpline (+917600011160) to verify the footage and the accompanying claim. In some cases, an audio clip is also viral along with the video where it is claimed that, “Bajrang Dal workers are killing Muslims in UP’s Manshurpur area. They have killed everyone, young or old, of the entire family. Before that, 50 people were killed in Adampur, Rasoolpur, Budanpur and Mamoonpur. There is mourning in homes and people have lost their sleep.”

X User Urooj Fatima shared the viral video and linked it to a theft incident taking place in Amroha district of UP.

Fact Check

A reverse image search of the frames of the viral video led us to a website named livegore.com on April 11, 2024. It was reported that in a gruesome incident in Pakistan’s Punjab province, a poverty-stricken man killed his wife and seven children with an axe because he could not feed them.

Apart from this, X user Mahjabeen shared a video on April 12, 2024, and wrote that a tragic incident happened in Alipur, where a man killed his wife and seven children with an axe. 

On performing a keyword search based on the above information, we found news reports from paliwalwani.com and NDTV World. According to the reports, Sajjad Khokhar, a labourer in Alipur in Pakistan’s Muzaffargarh district, killed his 42-year-old wife and his seven children, including four daughters and three sons aged between eight months and 10 years. Sajjad had reportedly confessed to his crime and was arrested.

In the reports, police are quoted as saying that the accused said that he had killed his family because he could not feed his children. It was also told that the accused was ‘mentally disturbed’ due to financial constraints and often quarreled with his wife.

During our investigation, we also found a tweet by UP police from July 21, 2025, in which they termed as misleading the claim that ‘Bajrang Dal men were entering homes Muslims and killing them’.

UP police also said that the video was of an incident in Muzaffargarh, Pakistan, in the year 2024. Three individuals had been arrested for spreading rumours. 

Zero Tolerance Against Crime –

जनपद मुजफ्फरनगर में, पाकिस्तान के मुजफ्फरगढ़ में वर्ष 2024 में घटित घटना के वीडियो, जिसमें एक व्यक्ति ने अपनी पत्नी व अपने 07 बच्चों की कुल्हाड़ी से काटकर हत्या कर दी थी, को भ्रामक रूप से मुरादाबाद का बताकर इस कथन के साथ विभिन्न व्हाट्सएप ग्रुपों… pic.twitter.com/9hwWgQsHij

— UP POLICE (@Uppolice) July 21, 2025

So, to sum up, the viral video is from Pakistan where a man suffering from a financial crisis reportedly killed his entire family in April, 2024. The claims of this being an incident from UP and Bajrang Dal workers being involved are also entirely false. 

The post Muslim family murdered by Bajrang Dal in UP? Video from Pakistan viral with false claim appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

Over the past six months, JVP has repeatedly warned that the Trump administration is manufacturing false charges of antisemitism as a cynical ploy to fundamentally reshape higher education and, through it, American society. The Trump regime, which platforms white supremacists and neo-Nazi sympathizers, does not truly care for Jewish safety. Columbia’s agreement confirms our worst fears. The deal mandates measures to silence research, teaching and criticism of the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and system of apartheid. In addition, it includes broad limitations on the right to protest, reduces protections for trans students, places severe restrictions on international students and their rights, and establishes an effective ban on any considerations of diversity in hiring, promotions or admissions.

This is the latest in a series of recent moves by Columbia University that flagrantly — and falsely — invoke Jewish safety in an effort to appease authoritarian forces, including: the mass suspension of student protesters, the adoption of the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism, draconian antidemocratic reforms to its disciplinary procedures, attacks on shared governance, new ideological tests for academic departments, silence in the face of ICE kidnapping one of its students, and shuttering its campus to the public. We refuse to allow Jewish identities and histories to be used as fuel for such heinous attacks on our fundamental rights.

These policies do nothing to advance Jewish safety. To the contrary, as the vast majority of Jews recognize, they endanger our community by making us the face of a broad right-wing attack on higher education, movements for social justice, and communities of color. This is especially the case on college campuses, where a great and growing number of young Jews, called by the social justice traditions of our faith, are mobilizing in an effort to end our universities and our government’s support for the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Jewish Voice for Peace urges other colleges and universities not to follow Columbia University’s dangerous example and to instead recommit themselves to academic inquiry free of outside political interference and to the pursuit of a more just and equal world. As the Trump administration pursues an authoritarian project at home and finances an ongoing genocide in Gaza, it is incumbent upon universities to recognize and respond to this historical moment with concrete actions.

Anonymous undergraduate Columbia University student, JVP-Columbia member:

“It is frankly terrifying to see how easily and shamelessly Columbia has thrown its international students, its students of color and its transgender students under the bus. The implementation of these fascist policies is not capitulation — it is exactly what Columbia has wanted to do all along. Even with all the dangers this agreement poses to us, we know that it pales in comparison to the suffering the Israeli government is inflicting upon Gaza. Columbia is trying to stop us from speaking out against forced starvation, but we know nothing is more important than fighting for the people of Palestine, and we will not be silenced when Gaza needs us to speak up.”

Joseph Howley, Associate Professor of Classics, Columbia University, JVP Academic Council:

“In a crisis of authoritarian attacks on democracy, universities have one job: standing up to tyrants. Columbia not only neglected that basic duty to the rest of society, but also sold out its own proud heritage of protest and social justice by making a deal that leaves every student, staff and faculty member studying and teaching under the threat that Trump will be back to shake us down again if someone with the right connections doesn’t like what gets said on campus or in a classroom. At a moment when Israel’s policies have hundreds of thousands of Gazans on the brink of starvation, the White House and Columbia’s Board are more focused on ending DEI and making it illegal to criticize the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

Jonah Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing, Jewish Voice for Peace:

“Columbia has betrayed its core mission and set a dangerous precedent for the entire higher education sector. The once-great university is quickly transforming itself into an appendage of the MAGA movement, agreeing to anti-Palestinian, xenophobic, transphobic, racist, pro-genocide ideology. History will not forget their role in facilitating the rise of authoritarianism at home and genocide in Gaza.”

JVP staff, members and students are available to speak with media

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Jamila Raqib is a powerhouse for peace and democracy. As Executive Director of the Albert Einstein Institution, she has spent years training people across the globe in militant nonviolent resistance. Her work fuels the kind of courage that topples dictators and changes the course of history. She trained under legendary activist Gene Sharp whose book From Dictatorship to Democracy the Gaslit Nation Book Club read back in March, brought the fight for freedom to the frontlines, and she’s just getting started.

Want more bold conversations like this? Join the Gaslit Nation Salon, live every Monday at 4pm ET. Meet fellow listeners, unpack the news, share strategies, vent, and build a real-time record of this moment in history. Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit. Annual memberships are discounted, and you can even give the gift of membership.

If you’re packing for the beach or hiding from the heat, take along a little inspiration. Dictatorship: It’s Easier Than You Think! is our graphic novel starring the delightfully dodgy Judge Lackey. He’ll walk you through the do’s and don’ts of becoming a dictator and staying one, all while trying to outwit the pesky activists and journalists out to ruin his grip on power.Grab your copy at your local library or at Bookshop.org.

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This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

DK:  I was there for a little more than three decades. Before that, I taught at UCLA and USC, and before that at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There, I got into some trouble. I was arrested for taking over a U.S. Senator’s office along with half a dozen Quakers in protest of weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras. I also had a little run-in with the Ku Klux Klan and was sued by right-wing Central American students for bringing in speakers they didn’t like. They sued me for “mental anguish”. Of course, the suit was thrown out of court, but it was a distraction. So, when I got the position at CSUN, I was very happy to get a permanent position there.

Q:  So “mental anguish” …. that’s a recurring theme of the critics.

DK:  Yes, it’s one of their tools. Claiming to feel bad about what we talk about.

Q:  How did you become interested in Israel-Palestine?

DK:  Well, it was kind of gradual. When I was a kid, I was very pro-Israel. And then in college, I started to have doubts and talked to more people. And the more I learned, the more obvious it was that this was a settler colonial state that was engaged in pretty much what the United States did to the Native Americans. And then there was a real spike in my understanding and activity with the 2009  “Cast Lead” assault on Gaza by Israel. That really increased my activism. It was just a new level of outrage that I and many people felt.

Q:  I understand you didn’t talk about politics in your mathematics classes, but that you were otherwise active. What did you do, and what attacks or censorship did you experience?

DK: That’s right. I was careful not to bring it up in my classes since it didn’t really have direct relevance. But I was the faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine and for the Student Green Party and a few other student groups. So, I created a webpage, a BDS resource webpage on the university server from my faculty webpage. Then, I wrote an open letter that was signed by many CSU faculty, administrators, and students to the chancellor of the entire CSU system, demanding that CSU end the study abroad program in Israel for a variety of reasons.

That got some news coverage and brought a lot of attention to my website. So, that was the start of a lot of attacks.

There were hundreds of calls to my university president that I be fired. There were some threats, some kind of death threats. There were some threats to the administration to withhold financial contributions. There was just lots of slander. Some of it came from the campus itself, but it was mostly outside from the Zionist Organization of America, a group called AMCHA, and other groups. And then there were some politicians who joined in the attacks. The local congressman, Brad Sherman, and a California assembly member, Bob Blumenfield, who later became a city council member.

An Israeli-supported law firm pressured then Attorney General Kamala Harris to prosecute me. And they separately asked the Los Angeles City attorney to do that. But those requests came to nothing. Still, I was required to produce massive amounts of emails, anything regarding Israel-Palestine, and regarding logistical planning to bring in guest speakers Ilan Pappe and Norman Finkelstein. These threats and demands went on and on for a long time. And on my website, I  posted a page of the threats, the nasty comments, and the calls for my removal. They were signed by doctors and other professionals, but used really low-level language.  The ugliness that it brought out was amazing.

Q: So you were part of organizing and hosting famous academics such as Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappe. How did those visits go, and what were the results?

DK: The Norman Finkelstein visit lasted a week. He gave three lectures, and there was a group of us who wanted to hire him at CSUN after he lost tenure at DePaul University. And so that included 30 faculty members from various departments, including the science departments and social studies, social science departments, and a wide range. And it was going well. We got the approval of a department that wanted to hire him, the journalism department, and it went up to the top, and we were all set to go. And then, at the last minute, it was vetoed by the campus president. Norman asked me to write an article about the whole thing, which I did.

The visit of Ilan Pappe came later in 2012.  We had to have campus police escorts because of the threats. But he was very persuasive and compelling. Both of these guests were. The students were very engaged and it went well.

Q:  I know that there was a big campaign to prevent the tour by Ilan Pappe, but ultimately, the presidents of several CSU universities defended his right to speak. Is that correct?

DK: Three of the campus presidents wrote a letter defending academic freedom. It was an open letter, but it went to the chancellor of the entire CSU system. The visits went smoothly logistically because of that. And it was pretty rare that campus presidents would stand up for academic freedom and freedom of speech for speakers like Ilan Pappe, who very strongly promotes Palestinian human rights.

Q: You’ve been an active supporter of the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. Why do you think this is important?

DK: It’s an important part of the general Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Academics and culture are very important within Israel. And so this particular aspect of BDS lends what we think is special leverage to isolate the Zionist state because of its actions. Israeli universities are deeply complicit in the persecution and genocide of Palestinians. Maya Wind’s new book, “Towers of Ivory and Steel”, documents that very clearly. Focusing on academics is very pertinent to what’s going on. And the cultural boycott has a very large impact. Everybody recognizes when a famous artist, a singer, or a musician refuses to go to Israel and states the reasons.

Q: But critics of Israel and supporters of BDS are under attack. Do you think the censorship and attacks are the same as in the past? Or is it getting worse?

DK:  It’s getting much worse. The accusation of anti-semitism has been weaponized. Students, teachers, and professors are facing frivolous lawsuits. Students are facing expulsions. Faculty are facing job loss. Both are facing arrests and deportations for opposing genocide because it might hurt the feelings of the killers. Zionist students and outside advocates of genocide claim to feel unsafe because of demonstrations against Israel’s genocide. And they call human rights activists “anti-semitic”.  Even the Jewish activists. And so it’s much more intense now than in the past. They were just sort of getting warmed up on people like me, and now they’ve really sharpened their knives.

Q:  Do you have any strategy suggestions for campus activists who oppose the genocide happening in Gaza?

DK: Yes. I think we would do well to be less defensive and go on the offense. Pleading academic freedom and denying that we’re anti-semites is not really going very far. I think we need to move in the direction of accusing the accusers. Israeli soldiers are intentionally killing babies and children, shooting boys in their testicles, torturing doctors to death, and more broadly, carrying out the extermination of the entire Palestinian people. These are the worst of the worst. And we need to point to them, not just defend ourselves from their empty accusations.

By defining opposition to genocide as antisemitic, they’ve turned antisemitism into a virtue. Hitler could have only dreamed of this kind of linguistic transformation. And in this sense, the Zionists are the biggest antisemites on the planet. They’re the worst of humanity. So I think that the least vulnerable among us should take the lead, especially US-born tenured professors.

And we should focus on where the real power is.  For K-12 schools, it is the school boards. But for almost all colleges and universities in the United States, whether they’re public or private, the board of trustees is the institution’s highest decision-making or governance body.

Members of the board are typically very rich. They have a lot of political power within the country, not just in universities. To give one example, Miriam Adelson is on the USC Board of Trustees. Miriam Adelson was married to the late Sheldon Adelson. He was a very rich billionaire. Both of them are rich billionaires. And Miriam Adelson’s Foundation contributes $200 million each year to Israel. And she was one of the biggest Trump donors as well. So, there are a lot of university trustees like that. They come from weapons manufacturers, the oil and gas industry, and other major corporations. And they’re overwhelmingly Zionist.

University presidents, who appear to be in charge of their campuses, serve at the pleasure of the boards and can be hired and fired at the whim of these boards of trustees. So the boards of trustees are the real power at universities. They are behind the persecution of opponents of genocide. The college presidents who do cave in to the Zionist censors should face no-confidence votes from their faculty senate on campus. But, there really hasn’t been enough focus on the boards of trustees. And I think that’s the next step. There are a number of people who are coming to the same conclusion on campuses and universities.

A lot of research would be involved to find out who these people are, what their background is, expose them to the public, and show what they’re doing, and try to get them kicked out. Replace them with decent human beings. It’s like you’re either for genocide or against it. If you don’t care, that doesn’t say much good about you. So being anti genocide is the minimal criterion for human decency. After all, if they’re going after and attacking people who are trying to stop a genocide, that makes them horrible human beings, and they shouldn’t be in charge of anything.

Q: Do you have any final comments?

DK: I think the importance of the Palestinians’ fight for survival can hardly be overstated. Their struggle is not only for themselves, but it’s at the forefront of a worldwide struggle against global fascism. And that includes the climate catastrophe, because global fascism can only accelerate planetary suicide.

David Klein is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). 

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rick Sterling.

“With only rare exceptions,” Norman Solomon writes, “US news media and members of Congress continue to dodge the reality of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, normalizing atrocities on a mass scale.” How did we end up in this Orwellian situation, where the reality of genocide is so thoroughly denied by pundits and politicians even as that genocide is unfolding in front of our eyes? How do we combat this level of inhumane violence and propaganda? Solomon, co-founder of Roots Action, joins The Marc Steiner Show for an urgent discussion about Israel’s manufactured genocide of Palestinians and how the media manufactures consent to, at best, hide and, at worst, justify Israel’s heinous actions.

Guests:

• Norman Solomon is the cofounder of RootsAction.org, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and the author of numerous books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of the Military Machine.

Additional resources:

• Norman Solomon, Common Dreams, “In too much of the US, Israel’s Gaza genocide has been made invisible”
• Norman Solomon, Common Dreams, “Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? Billionaires”
• Norman Solomon, Common Dreams, “Bombing Iran Is part of the USA’s repetition compulsion for war, war, war”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Marc Steiner.

On July 4, a website named UP Aaj Tak shared the image and said that the “shocking incident” was from Delhi’s Lakshmi Nagar area. The accompanying text said that 72-year-old Bharat Singh had adopted a young girl 17 years ago, but after she grew up, he “took advantage of her helplessness and married her.” Readers must note that this site is not related to the Hindi news outlet Aaj Tak.

Bhim Army and Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) supporter Gulshan Kumar made a similar claim on Instagram. Meanwhile, on X, Minu Meena, Mriganka Singh, Mandeep Rajbhar and Asjad Ali shared the images with similar claims. On Facebook, Arman Mirza, Tania Lal and Speed News were among those amplifying such claims.

Some social media users, however, shared the same pictures and claimed that a Chhattisgarh resident, Ramkhiladi Mahato, married his daughter to “save her honour”. Instagram users Suresh Pachwala, Aryan Yadav, Ramkesh Meena, Mahendra Suman, along with Facebook users Manraj Jagsara and Akash Jareda also promoted the image with the same claim.

Alt News also received multiple requests on its WhatsApp helpline number [+91 76000 11160] to verify the viral image. According to one of the requests, the incident took place in Uttar Pradesh. The message said that 65-year-old Rambabu married his daughter to save his family’s honour because young boys in the neighborhood were eyeing her.

Fact Check

A reverse image search of the viral photos led us to a video from a Facebook page named Vikas Singh on October 26, 2024. The photos are screengrabs taken from this video. We watched the full seven-minute long video, in which the girl pretends to marry the old man to help him reclaim his own house.

We found several clues that indicate this is not a real incident but a scripted video. For one, the Facebook page describes Vikas Singh as a digital creator who makes scripted videos in which he features too.

Secondly, the page had uploaded several similar scripted videos in which the same actors seen in the viral image were also featured.

We found several such scripted videos on Vikas Singh’s Instagram page and YouTube channel.

Lastly, Alt News also managed to reach out to Vikas Singh to get clarity on the viral photos and claims. He rubbished the viral claims and confirmed that the video was scripted and made by him. He also identified the woman in the video and the viral images as Gurpreet Kaur, adding that she and her family were quite upset with the false claims.

Singh also told Alt News that the old man in the viral images and video was Amar, who was no longer alive. He passed away recently. He also shared a picture of the old man’s death and the link to the scripted video. On July 6, 2025, he had posted about this on Facebook.

Singh also clarified the rumours in an Instagram post.

To sum up, the viral pictures circulating on social media are actually screenshots from a scripted video made by a digital content creator; they do not depict a real incident. Social media claims that this “shocking incident” is from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh or Chhattisgarh are baseless.

The post Screenshots from scripted video shared with claims that 72-year-old man married 21-year old woman appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

As Congress approved some $45 billion to expand ICE’s immigration detention capacity, including the jailing of families and children, we look at the case of one family. In May, plainclothes ICE agents detained a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, along with his 9-year old sister and their mother, as they left their immigration court hearing in Los Angeles. In detention, the boy missed a key doctor’s appointment, and the family said his sister cried every night. As pressure grew over their conditions, the family was released on July 2. “The little boy doesn’t want to leave his home. He’s terrified. He sobs, cries and screams when his mother takes him out of the house,” says attorney Elora Mukherjee, who represents the boy and his family and is director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. She says the young children are traumatized after their month in ICE detention.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

I think I definitely always wanted to be a writer in some capacity, but I don’t think that I quite understood what was possible. I remember being a really little kid at the doctor’s office with my mom, and there were wildlife photos in the office, and she was like, “Oh, the doctor’s son took those. He’s a photographer.” And she was also like, “You know, he takes [these photos], but he also has another job.” It’s such a funny little thing that stuck with me. You cannot just be an artist. You have to have another job. I internalized that.

I interned at magazines. I’ve done a bunch of marketing work. There’s no shame in that. I do think you come back around; it is just a balance. I don’t think that it’s impossible to be a very fulfilled, great artist and have a day job. We all need to make money. That’s really valid. But it took a lot longer for me to actually write a book. The internet was the gateway for that, because the internet had no rules. I think I wanted to be a writer, but I don’t think that I gave myself permission to be a writer until many, many years later. And I was really unhappy and self destructive, because I was subverting what I really wanted to do.

In one of your newsletters you listed all the things you did instead of write when you were on deadline, which is deeply relatable. What is it about writing that breeds procrastination? Is procrastination just part of it? Why is writing so hard?!

I don’t want to fully buy into the tortured artist trope, because you can be happy. I want to believe in that for us. But I kind of don’t trust anyone who says that it’s easy. The dread… I do think that maybe it’s just part of the process. I feel like I’ve practiced a lot, and every time I have to write something, I will do anything to avoid it. I just feel such a deep pit in my stomach, thinking, “This is gonna be the thing that is bad.” I don’t even know if I can fully untangle what that feeling of anxiety is.

But nothing feels better than having written. Nothing feels better than having made something, even if it’s not great. Just having put words down, I can breathe out a little bit. You know? It’s like exercising. My brain is like one of those herding dogs that needs a job to do. And if you don’t take it out and give it a job, it’s just gonna chew up all the furniture. You need to do it, and also [you need] free fucking time. I guess it’s part of the process. And I’m trying to be kinder about that, and accept that everything is just gonna take three times as long as I think it will. Procrastination is actually an ideation process. I just started transcendental meditation, so I’m trying to get into quieting that part, assimilating that part—being like, okay, dread is there. It’s part of it. That means the process is working.

I don’t believe in laziness anymore. I just don’t think it’s a thing. You’re tired, or you’re feeling avoidant, or you have a very good reason for not wanting to do something, or you’re just weighed down by how sad the world is.

Yes! We’re allowed to be lazy. We’re allowed to take time to rest and figure it out… I read somewhere that to write well you have to be in a lucid state. Does that resonate with you?

I think so? I write emotionally and edit rationally. I tend to write twice as much, if not more, than I actually publish. It’s always a really nice compliment when someone is like, “Oh, your writing is so restrained—a light touch.” And I’m like, “Yes, that’s because I deleted half of it.” It never starts that way. I feel really lucky, working with a book editor for the first time who’s very hands on… She gave me this huge gift where she just deleted every time I started to sound like I was explaining myself, or apologizing for something.

What drew you to memes as an art form?

I started making memes when I was working as a TV assistant. It was a very large bummer, a thankless job. Your time doesn’t matter. Your body doesn’t matter. Your agency doesn’t matter. Especially in that environment, when you have low self esteem, the idea of ever creating anything that other people are going to see feels galactically out of reach. I have this impulse to say that I just fell into it. No, actually—I really, really, really wanted people to like it. I really wanted people to think that I was funny. I had a deep desperation to be seen and liked. And I think acknowledging that is important. People always talk about attention seeking as shameful. I’m human. Is it attention seeking, or is it maybe connection seeking?

What makes a good meme?

The meme itself is this weird folk art subversion of popular culture. It’s like, wait, does anyone else have this kind of strange, ugly response to this? Does anyone have the same fear or hope or anxiety? That’s the crazy magic of relatability. The meme is a balance between relatability and abstraction, because you have to be able to disseminate it… I don’t even think it has to have a very strong visual component or a very strong literary component, as long as those two things are in balance.

Is the meme an essay?

I think that it’s much closer to poetry than it is an essay, because it’s very much about playing with the signifier and the signified, and how those things are connected, and how they’re dissident. That little gap is where the humor is. I love that. I think that’s what makes it good.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot more about long-form writing. I think that what I make on the internet is kind of like a meta commentary on making things. My writing gets to the heart of it. That’s the work. And then [content] is this work that’s about the work. I need to see it that way. Because—and I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this—I feel like people who are very into growth, and engagement for engagement’s sake, are deeply mentally ill. Like, how can you not feel like a fraud? I’ve been in a tailspin the last two weeks. I don’t know if you saw this, but the official White House account posted this ASMR video of someone getting deported. It is so horrible. And as someone who specifically creates wellness content, I’m just like, how do you do this anymore? What are we doing here? That’s not a reason not to, I guess. But I need to take a beat, because this is evil.

You write about your struggles with mental health and how social media often exacerbates these issues. How do you stay off your phone and off “the narcissism app” (Instagram)?

Read a book. Get an analog alarm clock. Have your phone in another room. I like to keep my phone on Do Not Disturb all day. I’m always really upfront with people. As soon as I exchange numbers with someone, I’m like, “I will not text you back.” If it’s a logistics thing, for sure. But if someone texts, “How are you?” I’m never texting you back. I don’t have the bandwidth. We can talk about it in person, or not. I actually love the Instagram Story, because it’s just a really quick way to let everyone know how you’re doing. I love to check in with other people and see them at the state fair or somewhere like that…

I really appreciated that you wanted to meet in person. I wasn’t expecting that. I normally don’t do these in person. It does change the dynamic… In your book, You Have a New Memory, you write that we live in a world of a million conveniences. Do you think that this type of ease breeds bad art?

I think it’s incredibly important for people to make art. Typing shit into ChatGPT or whatever is not inherently “bad,” but it can be destructive. We live in a very sick society in that way, where anything that isn’t commodifiable is not viable. It brings us back to the conversation of laziness.

Is using ChatGPT lazy?

Laziness is a prism. There are so many ways to look at it. A million conveniences doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to be making bad art. It just means that we’re going to be making art in different ways, or reacting to different things.

I know you lost your childhood home in the devastating Los Angeles fires. How are you doing?

It still feels very unreal to me. It feels a little bit like I haven’t visited my parents’ house in a long time. I haven’t been back, but there’s nothing there. It’s very much a traumatic event. I lost all my childhood stuffed animals. Sentimentality is what makes us human.

I’m so sorry. What makes you wake up each morning and keep writing? Keep making art?

I’m one of those people who has never woken up refreshed. So sorry to answer that literally, but mornings are crazy. I went to a hypnotherapist to try and become a morning person, and it just didn’t take.

We’re swirling around in an ontological vertex. Is there meaning in this app? Is there meaning in being part of the internet? Is there meaning in writing? There’s commodified content and conservative propaganda everywhere. It’s fucked up and it’s depressing. Why keep doing things? I think violence is dehumanizing. Art is humanizing. So when you are making things in a real and authentic way, that’s humanizing. When you insist on community—that’s the difference. I think you can say something with honesty in a million different ways. I think you can say it very honestly in fiction. I think we can also say it with a silly little image of an animal.

What’s your take on the concept of creative process?

I don’t have a creative process or a schedule. When people talk about their process, they’re always sort of like, “Well, I rise at dawn every day and I write for two hours.” There’s so much discipline. And I do think that’s important. But I also think a discipline is anything we can do that requires personal accountability.

I feel like the people that create more sporadically never talk about it because it’s seen as shameful. It feels very important for me to say that I do not adhere to any schedule. Sometimes I wake up and write in bed on my laptop, and sometimes I won’t write until 5 PM, and some days I don’t write at all. I don’t believe you have to write every day to be a writer. Sometimes I make things while I’m watching The Bachelor, and I’m sitting on my laptop Photoshopping. Sometimes I’ll work for 16 hours straight, whispering to myself, because I’m editing a video that I’m really into. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I used to feel like a failure because I couldn’t adhere to a strict schedule of creation. But at some point it’s like, why are you fighting yourself?

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Diana Ruzova.

Janine Jackson interviewed media scholar Victor Pickard about the Paramount settlement for the July 18, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Washington Monthly (6/2/25)

Janine Jackson: Faced with a groundless lawsuit claiming that an interview with Kamala Harris amounted to election interference in favor of Democrats, CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, could have struck a symbolic blow for press freedom by saying, “No,” pointing to any number of legal arguments, starting with the First (for a reason) Amendment.

But Paramount isn’t a journalistic institution. It’s a business with media holdings, and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone was in the middle of doing business, trying to sell the corporation to another Hollywood studio, a move that, perhaps quaintly, requires government approval. That now means approval of this government.

And so here we are, with a recent $16 million deal, which is being widely denounced as an outright bribe, and a cold wind blowing through every newsroom.

And yet here we are. The Paramount settlement, says Victor Pickard, is, yes, a stunning display of bribery, greed and cowardice. But we need to understand, it’s also a symptom of a deep structural rot in our media today, a system in which profit trumps democracy at every turn.

Victor Pickard is a professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, where he co-directs the Media Inequality and Change Center. He’s the author, most recently, of Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society from Oxford University Press. He joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Victor Pickard.

Victor Pickard: It’s great to be back on the show, Janine.

JJ: Well, I hear that Paramount‘s market value has dropped since Shari Redstone threw press independence on the fire to warm shareholders’ hands. It’s almost as if folks thought it wasn’t a valuable journalistic institution.

Forbes (4/7/20)

I want to launch you into the bigger picture of which this is emblematic, but I first want to insert: Shari Redstone inherited Paramount from her father, Sumner Redstone, who, while some of us were working to show there was a conflict, declared it openly.

In 2004, then-head of CBS and Viacom Sumner Redstone stated at a corporate leader confab that he didn’t want to denigrate then–Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, but

from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal, because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people, but from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company.

And, later, CBS head Les Moonves—CounterSpin listeners will have heard me say many times—declared laughingly, “Donald Trump is bad for America, but he’s good for CBS, so let’s do it.”

So the structural conflict you’re describing, it’s not a theory. It’s not the stuff of smoke-filled rooms. It’s out there for everyone to see, every day in every way. So the questions have to do with, once we diagnose this problem, what do we do about it?

The Nation (1/30/17)

VP: Thank you for opening up with that softball question. I mean, that is the main problem before us, and everything you just said leading up to this question really lays out that this is a systemic problem that we’re facing, and it requires a systemic fix. It’s not just a case of a few bad apples, or a handful of bad corporations and perhaps a bad journalist, even, but it really is a systemic structural problem. And so we really need to move our frame of analysis from just condemning the latest media malfeasance to really condemning the entire hypercommercialized media system in which we are all immersed, and so clearly serves only commercial values and not democratic values.

So the first step, of course, would be to decommercialize our media, much easier said than done, but that’s something we need to place on our horizon. And not only that, we also need to radically democratize our media, from root to branch, and that means bringing it back down to the local level, making sure that our media are owned and controlled by the public. Even our public media, our so-called public media, aren’t actually owned by the people.

So this is something that we need to work towards. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it’s something we need to start thinking about now.

JJ: I love the idea of a long-term and a short-term plan, and eyes on the prize. So let’s go back to that. It’s not that we’re going to change things legislatively or politically tomorrow, but there are things on the ground locally. There are models we can build on, yeah?

The Nation (4/15/25)

VP: That’s absolutely true. There’s a number of models that exist today, that have existed in our history and that exist around the world, and we really should be looking at some of those to expand our current imagination about what’s possible in the future. Obviously, we have some great independent local media, and those outlets, those institutions, we should be supporting in any way that we can, through donations, subscriptions, whatever we can, to help them. They’re all struggling, like all local media are right now.

We also, even though I made a sort of snarky comment about our public media a moment ago, I think we do need to look to, as I say, save our public media so that we can change it. As we know, the meager funds that we allocate to public media are currently on the chopping block. It comes out to about a $1.58 per person per year in this country, which is literally off the chart compared to most democratic countries around the world. So we need to look at how we can salvage that, but also, again, expand on it, and build, restructure our public media, so that it’s not just public in name but actually publicly owned.

There are other things that we could be doing, but we just have to start with recognizing that the current commercial system is failing democracy, and will always fail democracy.

JJ: When you talk about public media, and this is a thing, of course, folks are being encouraged to think about it now as “ideological” institutions. First of all, and you’ve said it, but they don’t get a lot of government support to begin with.

Neiman Reports (1/24/22): The US is virtually off the chart when it comes to its ratio of GDP to spending on public media.

But at the same time, progressives, we’ve had plenty of complaints about public broadcasting as it exists in this country. It had a beautiful ideal. It had a beautiful beginning. It hasn’t fulfilled that role.

We have complaints about it, but the complaints that we’re now hearing don’t have anything to do with the complaints that we have about it. So the idea of saving public media might land weird to some CounterSpin listeners, but there’s a reason that we need to keep that venue open.

VP: Absolutely. I mean, it is an ideal, just like democracy itself is an ideal, something that we have yet to actually achieve, but it’s something we can’t give up on just because the current iteration of this model that we have in the US, which is a kind of strange one, again, compared to other public media models around the world, it’s actually a misnomer. It’s mostly supported by private capital.

But if we were to actually fund it in accordance with global norms, we could have a very robust public media system that was not dependent on corporate sponsorships, that was not catering to higher socioeconomic groups, that, again, could actually spend more time engaging with and devoting programming for local communities.

So this is something that’s not inevitable. Like our entire media system, there was nothing inevitable with how we designed it. We need to understand the political economic structures that produce the kind of media that we’re constantly critiquing in order to change it, to create an entirely different kind of media system that’s driven by a different and democratic logic.

JJ: Let me just draw you out on that. We spoke last year, and I would refer interested people to that conversation, about separating capitalism and journalism, and talking about different ways of financing media in the service of the public.

And we understand complaints about “state media.” We hear all of that, and any kind of funding structure should be transparent, and we should talk about it.

But I want to ask you, finally, there are creative policy responses going on, and it’s not about kicking the final answers down the field; it’s really just about making a road while we walk it, and making examples of things, so that we can see that, yeah, they work, and they can move us towards a bigger vision.

CounterSpin (5/6/22)

VP: Absolutely. And as you already suggested, state media and public media are not the same thing. That we publicly subsidize media doesn’t mean it immediately has to become a mouthpiece for the state or the government.

And, indeed, government is always involved in our media. It’s a question of how it should be involved, whether it’s to serve corporate interests or public interests.

I think we can look to what’s happening at the state level, for example, in New Jersey, they’ve long had an Information Consortium network that’s focused on subsidizing various local journalistic initiatives. And it’s a proof of concept of how the state can make these public investments towards publicly accountable media. And we’re starting to see that in many states across the country.

A lot of experiments, some will survive, some won’t. The important thing is that we need to create these non-market means of support for the media that we need. I think that ideal of separating journalism and capitalism, which was always a match made in Hell, we need to find a way to do that, again, to be on our political horizon for the future.

Victor Pickard: “Much of what we’re talking about is really trying to figure out the structures that would allow journalists to be journalists.”

JJ: Well, I said that was my last question, but I want to ask you another one, because I think a mistake that folks make about FAIR, and possibly about you, is that we’re anti-journalism per se. But we are emphatically pro–good journalism that’s not public relations for power. It’s because we believe in the power of journalism that we are so concerned about these structural constraints.

VP: Exactly. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. And I think much of what we’re talking about is really trying to figure out the structures that would allow journalists to be journalists. Most journalists don’t go into the profession, they don’t follow the craft, to become rich, or to become mouthpieces of the already powerful. I think it’s generally a noble calling, and we just need to create the institutions and the structures that can allow them to be the great journalist they want to be.

JJ: All right, then. Victor Pickard is professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. He co-directs the Media Inequality and Change Center, and his most recent book is called Democracy Without Journalism?. Victor Pickard, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

VP: Thanks so much for having me, Janine.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

“You need double the electric of what we have right now, and maybe even more than that,” Trump said, recalling a conversation with “David”—most likely White House AI czar David Sacks, a panelist at the summit. “I said, what, are you kidding? That’s double the electric that we have. Take everything we have and double it.”

At the high-profile summit on Tuesday—where, in addition to Sacks, panelists and attendees included Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat, and ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods—companies announced $92 billion in investments across various energy and AI-related ventures. These are just the latest in recent breakneck rollouts in investment around AI and energy infrastructure. A day before the Pittsburgh meeting, Mark Zuckerberg shared on Threads that Meta would be building “titan clusters” of data centers to supercharge its AI efforts. The one closest to coming online, dubbed Prometheus, is located in Ohio and will be powered by onsite gas generation, SemiAnalysis reported last week.

For an administration committed to advancing the future of fossil fuels, the location of the event was significant. Pennsylvania sits on the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, which supercharged Pennsylvania’s fracking boom in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The state is still the country’s second-most prolific natural gas producer. Pennsylvania-based natural gas had a big role at the summit: The CEO of Pittsburgh-based natural gas company EQT, Toby Rice—who dubs himself the “people’s champion of natural gas”—moderated one of the panels and sat onstage with the president during his speech.

Read Next

Trump promised to help Big Oil. Its revenues plummeted.

Tik Root

All this new demand from AI is welcome news for the natural gas industry in the US, the world’s top producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas. Global gas markets have been facing a mounting supply glut for years. Following a warm winter last year, Morgan Stanley predicted gas supply could reach “multi-decade highs” over the next few years. A jolt of new demand—like the demand represented by massive data centers—could revitalize the industry and help drive prices back up.

Natural gas from Pennsylvania and the Appalachian region, in particular, has faced market challenges both from ultra-cheap natural gas from the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico as well as a lack of infrastructure to carry supply out of the region. These economic headwinds are “why the industry is doing their best to sort of create this drumbeat or this narrative around the need for AI data centers,” says Clark Williams-Derry, an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. It appears to be working. Pipeline companies are already pitching new projects to truck gas from the northeast—responding, they say, to data center demand.

The industry is finding a willing partner in the Trump administration. Since taking office, Trump has used AI as a lever to open up opportunities for fossil fuels, including a well-publicized effort to resuscitate coal in the name of more computing power. The summit, which was organized by Republican senator (and former hedge fund CEO) Dave McCormick, clearly reflected the administration’s priorities in this regard: No representatives from any wind or solar companies were present on any of the public panels.

Tech companies, which have expressed an interest in using any and all cheap power available for AI and have quietly pushed back against some of the administration’s anti-renewables positions, aren’t necessarily on the same page as the Trump administration. Among the announcements made at the summit was a $3 billion investment in hydropower from Google.

Read Next

Data centers are building their own gas power plants in Texas

Dylan Baddour & Arcelia Martin, Inside Climate News

This demand isn’t necessarily driven by a big concern for the climate—many tech giants have walked back their climate commitments in recent years as their focus on AI has sharpened—but rather pure economics. Financial analyst Lazard said last month that installing utility-scale solar panels and batteries is still cheaper than building out natural gas plants, even without tax incentives. Gas infrastructure is also facing a global shortage that makes the timescales for setting up power generation vastly different.

“The waiting list for a new turbine is five years,” Williams-Derry says. “If you want a new solar plant, you call China, you say, ‘I want more solar.’”

Given the ideological split at the summit, things occasionally got a little awkward. On one panel, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who headed up a fracking company before coming to the federal government, talked at length about how the Obama and Biden administrations were on an “energy crazy train,” scoffing at those administrations’ support for wind and solar. Speaking directly after Wright, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink admitted that solar would likely support dispatchable gas in powering AI. Incredibly, fellow panel member Woods, the ExxonMobil CEO, later paid some of the only lip service to the idea of drawing down emissions heard during the entire event. (Woods was touting the oil giant’s carbon capture and storage business.)

Still, the hype train, for the most part, moved smoothly, with everyone agreeing on one thing: We’re going to need a lot of power, and soon. Blackstone CEO Jonathan Gray said that AI could help drive “40 or 50 percent more power usage over the next decade,” while Porat, of Google, mentioned some economists’ projections that AI could add $4 trillion to the US economy by 2030.

It’s easy to find any variety of headlines or reports—often based on projections produced by private companies—projecting massive growth numbers for AI. “I view all of these projections with great skepticism,” says Jonathan Koomey, a computing researcher and consultant who has contributed to research around AI and power. “I don’t think anyone has any idea, even a few years hence, how much electricity data centers are gonna use.”

In February, Koomey coauthored a report for the Bipartisan Policy Center cautioning that improvements in AI efficiency and other developments in the technology make data center power load hard to predict. But there’s “a bunch of self-interested actors,” Koomey says, involved in the hype cycle around AI and power, including energy executives, utilities, consultants and AI companies.

Koomey remembers the last time there was a hype bubble around electricity, fossil fuels, and technology. In the late 1990s, a variety of sources, including investment banks, trade publications, and experts testifying in front of Congress began to spread hype around the growth of the internet, claiming that the internet could soon consume as much as half of US electricity. More coal-fired power, many of these sources argued, would be needed to support this massive expansion. (“Dig More Coal—The PCs Are Coming” was the headline of a 1999 Forbes article that Koomey cites as being particularly influential to shaping the hype.) The prediction never came to pass, as efficiency gains in tech helped drive down the internet’s energy needs; the initial projections were also based, Koomey says, on a variety of faulty calculations.

Koomey says that he sees parallels between the late 1990s and the current craze around AI and energy. “People just need to understand the history and not fall for these self-interested narratives,” he says. There’s some signs that the AI-energy bubble may not be inflating as much as Big Tech thinks: in March, Microsoft quietly backed out of 2GW of data center leases, citing a decision to not support some training workloads from OpenAI.

“It can both be true that there’s growth in electricity use and there’s a whole bunch of people hyping it way beyond what it’s likely to happen,” Koomey says.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump and the energy industry are eager to power AI with fossil fuels on Jul 20, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Molly Taft, WIRED.

Janine Jackson interviewed Detention Watch Network’s Silky Shah about mass deportation for the July 11, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

FAIR.org (7/9/25)

Janine Jackson: As is being reported, including by Belén Fernández for FAIR.org, among the myriad horrors of Trump’s budget bill—though not his alone; everyone who voted for it owns it—is the otherworldly amount of money, $175 billion, slated to fund mass deportation. That exceeds the military budget of every country in the world but the US and China. And some $30 billion is to go to ICE, the masked goons that are descending on swap meets and workplaces to carry out what many are calling brazen midday kidnappings.

We knew that this White House would be horrible for Black and brown people, and for immigrants especially, and yet we can still be shocked at how bad and how fast things are happening. Despair might be understandable, but it’s not particularly useful. So what do we do? What can we do?

Joining us now is Silky Shah, executive director at Detention Watch Network. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Silky Shah.

Silky Shah: Thank you for having me.

CounterSpin (1/24/25)

JJ: We see the narrative shifting. “Hey, he said it was just going to be violent criminals, or criminals, or people whose crime is administrative, but now, this is getting weird.” What’s happening now, the rounding up of anyone brown, basically, including people who are actively engaged in the legal processes of securing citizenship—we can be outraged, but I’m less sure about surprised, just because there was no “decent” way to do what Trump telegraphed he wanted to do.

At the same time, though, I don’t know that anyone really expected masked men spilling out of vans to snatch up children off the street. So, just first of all, did you even imagine the particular situation we’re seeing right now? You explained back in January how the apparatus were set up, but is this surprising, even at your level of understanding?

SS: I think what’s so shocking about this moment is that the scale of what has happened before is becoming astronomical. So, as you mentioned, $175 billion for immigration enforcement, $30 billion for ICE agents in particular, $35 billion for immigration detention. These are just wild numbers, and I think that is really what is so shocking.

Public Books (3/20/25)

I do think—we’re speaking here on CounterSpin—one of the biggest challenges of the last 20, 30 years of immigration enforcement, and how it’s been portrayed, is that there is a constant framing of immigration as a public safety issue, immigration as a national security issue, which is really not true. Mostly immigration is about labor, it’s about family relationships, it’s about seeking refuge.

And I think what’s so frustrating is that, actually, for many, many years of having this narrative of “some immigrants are deserving and some immigrants aren’t,” the “good immigrant versus the bad immigrant,” what ends up happening is where we’re at now, which it’s like all immigrants are perceived as a problem. And there’s no question that there’s an underlying racism and xenophobia and classism and all the other things at play here.

I think what’s so important for us to understand now, when we’re talking about the way ICE is operating, is that it’s been enabled by that framework—that when you reinforce this idea that some people are deserving, then you kind of expect everybody to be in that category. And in reality, the way the system worked before, is that people were being funneled through the criminal legal system. And this really skyrocketed the number of people who are in deportation proceedings, especially under the Obama administration. So this framework of “we are going to target people who are criminals,” it’s a distraction; the goal is to scapegoat immigrants, and all immigrants, and ignore the crisis of mass incarceration, which ICE is inherently a part of.

JJ: Where is the law in all of this? Is it that there are laws that exist, but aren’t being enforced? Is it that the law has changed, such that what we’re seeing is terrible, but lamentably legal? Do laws need to be changed? I think a lot of folks see masked men spilling out of vans and snatching kids and think, “That can’t be legal.” But is it?

Silky Shah: “They’re actually using immigration enforcement as a pretense to go after people who don’t agree with their ideas.”

SS: Well, I think there are some aspects of this that have been baked into the law for 30 years now, and some aspects that are new. And so I think it’s important to understand that. When you think about it, this initial framing of, “Oh, people are being disappeared and kidnapped,” came when a lot of students who had protested or expressed solidarity with Palestine were being targeted by ICE, many of whom had not had contact with the criminal legal system, many of whom had legal status in some form, including Green Cards and visas.

In that context, 30 years ago, when they passed the 1996 immigration laws, it actually started to expand the category of people who didn’t get due process, who didn’t have the right to due process; that included newly arriving immigrants, and also people who were legal permit residents, or had visas but had some crime, some conviction, that meant that they no longer had a right to make their case before a judge, and were required to be detained, required to be deported.

And so all of that stuff has been happening for decades now, and there are many aspects of what happened. Being separated from your family, even if you have a pregnant wife, all those things are quite normal. And also not having a warrant; I mean, ICE goes after immigrants all the time without a warrant. And a lot of our work has been to help people know their rights, know what is needed. But I think the thing that’s scary is that they’re actually using immigration enforcement as a pretense to go after people who don’t agree with their ideas, people who might be showing support for Palestine, or merely because they are Black and brown, and are an easy scapegoat for this administration.

So I think there are things that are happening outside of the scope of the law, and I think the test cases here are those students who were detained, and also the case of the many people who were sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador. I think those are instances where you’re just like, “Wow, that is definitely outside of law, and they’re operating in these ways that are really concerning.” But they’re also using these as strategies to change the law, which is what we saw recently with the men who are being deported to South Sudan, were stuck in Djibouti for many weeks, and now officially are in South Sudan. And the Supreme Court deeming that OK.

JJ: It’s bizarre.

You mentioned last time how much local- and state-level buy-in is required for this whole plan to work. Yes, there’s ICE. Yes, there is the Trump administration, but they do rely on state and local law enforcement, and other officials, to make this play out. Is that still a place to look for resistance, then?

SS: Absolutely. And I think it’s especially important now that we double down on those efforts because, yes, ICE is going to have $45 billion more over the next four years to build more detention centers, and our goal is to block that in every way, and make sure that isn’t permanent. And a lot of our strategy is getting local officials, state officials, to do that work, to say, “No, we don’t want a new ICE detention center in our community.” Once ICE detention exists in the community, people are much more likely to be targeted for deportation. Detention exists to facilitate deportation.

So in places like Illinois and Oregon, for instance, there are no detention centers. And that actually helps protect communities that much more.

NPR (6/6/25)

And I think, unfortunately, a lot of Democratic governors are responding in ways that are not ideal. I think in places like California and Washington State and other places, there needs to be a lot of work to say no, we have to double down on these policies that have protected immigrant communities, and expand them, and make sure that those transfers to ICE aren’t happening, so that we can limit ICE’s reach as much as possible. It’s still the most effective way to prevent them from getting the scale of deportations they want. The easiest way for them to do this is through these ICE/police collaborations, and stopping that is essential.

But also, in places like Florida, where Ron DeSantis is doing everything possible to work with ICE, and building things like this Everglades detention camp, and having agreements with ICE at every county jail. There’s been numerous deaths, actually, in Florida already, of people who have been in ICE custody. And so it really shows you the harm that that sort of relationship between state and local law enforcement does to make ICE even that much stronger. So I think there is this constant attention on ICE, but we have to understand that ICE operates within a broader apparatus around criminalization and the deportation machine, that many, many law enforcement agencies, including sheriffs, are central to.

JJ: And just to add to that: It’s about money, as you’ve explained. It comes back to money. Prisons—we can call them “detention centers”—bring money to a locality. And so that is part of the unseen or underexplored aspect of this, is that when you build a holding cell, then you’re going to put people in it. And that is part of what explains what’s happening.

SS: Absolutely. I think that this is so about the political economy, and some people have referred to this new MAGA murder bill as a jobs program. If you have this much more money for ICE, this much more money for detention, that means more jobs in these communities. And this is what we saw for years and years during the prison boom, is that many rural communities that were struggling financially were seeing prison as a recession-safe economy, like an ability to bring in jobs.

And especially when it comes to the relationship between sheriffs and ICE, there’s a symbiosis there between the federal government and local counties, that local counties are really depending on its revenue. I think one of our biggest challenges when we’re trying to work to end a detention contract is that fear of losing jobs, and that fear of losing that revenue.

Detention Watch Network (2021)

JJ: Let me just ask you, feeding off of that, to talk about #CommunitiesNotCages. What is the vision there? What are you talking about there, and where can folks see another way forward?

SS: Yeah, we launched a #CommunitiesNotCages campaign many years ago, under Trump’s first term, and we’re actually about to relaunch, because the amount of money that’s going to the system, the scale of what’s going to happen, I think we need to bring a lot more people in.

But a lot of it was actually responding to local organizing against detention. So we were seeing, in places like Alabama and Georgia and Arizona and elsewhere, that people were calling attention to the existing detention system and the harm that it was doing, the number of deaths that were happening, people hunger-striking in facilities. We were trying to really do work to get resources to them, make sure people are strategizing together.

And then in places like the Midwest, for years, so many groups were doing work to stop a new detention center from coming in. ICE wanted to have one large detention center in Illinois or Indiana or elsewhere. And they tried to build it in nine or ten different sites, and at every site they were able to organize with local community, or work with the state legislature, to stop detention expansion.

And so what we did was bring a lot of these communities together, the people who are organizing this campaign, thinking about state legislation, thinking about strategies with local counties or city councils, to learn from each other, and figure out, “OK, what can we do?”

Because one of the things we discovered, and we did some research on this, is that when there’s a detention center in your community, so if you have, say, 50 beds for detention, somebody’s two times more likely to be targeted for deportation. If you have 800 beds, somebody’s six times more likely to be targeted for deportation. And so that ability to cut off the detention capacity actually prevented increased deportation.

New Yorker (5/7/21)

So we really see #CommunitiesNotCages as a part of the strategy to end this mass deportation agenda, and also really connect to that broader effort against the prison industrial complex and against the crisis of mass incarceration, which does so much harm and are really, I think Mariame Kaba has called them “death-making institutions.” I mean, we’re seeing that numerous deaths have just happened in the last few weeks.

And so we’re really concerned about the conditions right now. I’m the first person to say Trump is building on what’s a bipartisan agenda, for decades now, against immigrants. But the scale of what’s happening, and how abysmal these facilities are becoming, are even shocking to me, as somebody who’s been doing this work for 20 years.

So I think this is the time where we can’t give in. Yes, they got this $45 billion, but actually, we have a lot of ability to stop them from implementing their plans, and we really need to gear up and fight as much as we can.

JJ: Well, that sounds very much like an end, and yet I am going to push for one final question, because we need a positive vision. What we’re seeing, what’s passing for a positive vision on immigration right now is, “But he makes my tacos! He waters my lawn! Don’t come for him!” And it makes immigration feel like noblesse oblige. It’s very nice of “us” that we let “them” live here.

And we can debunk all day: Immigrants do pay taxes, they aren’t stealing jobs. It’s also mean and small as a vision. And I just feel that there’s a positive, forward-looking vision that we could be talking about.

CounterSpin (6/25/21)

SS: I think one of the most challenging things about the way the mainstream immigrant advocacy efforts over the last 20 years have hurt our ability to make the case for immigrants is that they’ve really reinforced the idea of the good immigrant versus bad immigrant. And when they’re talking about the “good immigrant,” a lot of it really pushes this idea of immigrant exceptionalism or productivity, or immigrants are better than everyone else.

Often there’s this narrative of “immigrants commit less crimes than US citizens,” which just reinforces both anti-Black racism and the idea that immigration is about public safety, which it’s not.

And so again, as I was saying before, immigration is really largely about labor and family relationships, and also the root causes of migration. A lot of the narrative hasn’t allowed us to talk about US empire, and the role that the US has played in destabilizing a lot of other countries and conditions for people across the world.

So when I think about a vision—and I hope that we can move forward in a different way—is that actually part of the reason immigrants have been able to be scapegoated is because the US government and billionaires have created a crisis, an economic crisis, for so many people. And what we really need to understand is that immigrants are central to our community, that we are in this together—like having better healthcare; having better, more affordable housing; having better education opportunities, those things are going to make it easier for us to make the case for immigrants.

So I think, actually, we need to really deeply show that immigration is connected to every issue, whether it be climate, whether it be housing, etc., all these things, and see us in it together and think about this as a broader question of working people, working-class, poor people, and really not exceptionalizing immigrants.

And the other thing I would just say is that in so many ways, immigration detention in particular is being treated as an aside, as this other issue: small, not big, and whatever, there’s mass incarceration, there’s deportation. But now it’s being used as a testing ground for Trump’s authoritarianism. And so we really need to see that, actually, the way they’re operating around immigration creates risks for all of us. And, again, the reason why it’s so important that we see our struggles intertwined, and that we work together on this.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Silky Shah from the Detention Watch Network. They’re online at DetentionWatchNetwork.org. Thank you so much, Silky Shah, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

SS: Thanks so much for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Bangor Daily News. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Off a two-lane stretch of U.S. Route 1 in rural Caribou, Maine, sits a white ranch-style house that’s been consumed by weeds and vines.

The house was once the fulfillment of a dream. The owner had purchased it in 2006 through a federal mortgage program designed specifically for people like her: impoverished, first-time homeowners who live in the most rural parts of the United States. The loan, which came directly from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, required no down payment.

But things started going wrong from the day she moved in. First, the basement flooded. Then the furnace stopped working. As major repair costs accumulated over the next six years, the woman’s health deteriorated until she was forced to leave her job as a manager at Kmart. Her disability check was not enough to cover medical expenses and the upkeep required for the house — let alone the $855 monthly mortgage.

So in 2012 she drove to a USDA office 20 miles away and tried to give the house back. She said staff there would not accept her keys, telling her instead to call a toll-free number for help, as agency protocol requires. She left a message and did not hear back. She stopped paying her mortgage and moved out.

Her dream home sat abandoned for more than a decade.

USDA guidance says the agency should act quickly when borrowers fall behind on payments “to minimize any potential loss to the Government and to the borrower.” A prompt sale keeps the government from having to pay the legal and administrative costs associated with foreclosure down the road and may protect the borrower from incurring a major blemish on their credit history.

But that did not happen. Rather, 13 years passed before a sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door of the woman’s public housing apartment in May and served her with foreclosure papers on the now dilapidated ranch home that’s been overtaken by squatters. The government’s delay hurt the value of its investment and left the woman with a bill far greater than the cost of the loan she initially took out — with additional interest and other fees that had accumulated over those years.

The woman, now 68, declined to be interviewed, but her attorney, Tom Cox, said she allowed him to share her experience on the condition that she not be named to protect her privacy.

Since March, the USDA has filed 56 foreclosures in the federal court system against properties purchased with a rural development mortgage, also known as a Section 502 direct loan. All but one were in Maine. The borrowers have been in default for an average of nearly nine years.

As in the case of the Caribou homeowner, the USDA’s delays in those cases have resulted in borrowers racking up more debt because of the interest and fees that piled up in the intervening years, according to a Bangor Daily News and ProPublica examination of the foreclosure cases and interviews with former USDA officials and legal experts.

On average, borrowers in the 55 Maine cases owe $110,000 more than they would have had the agency moved to take possession of the properties when they first defaulted, the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica found. This includes what the USDA calls “preservation and inspection” fees, a broad category on the foreclosure filings that can include home repairs and yard maintenance, among other things.

Borrowers who can’t pay risk having the government garnish their wages or federal benefits such as Social Security. The Caribou woman had her disability checks garnished six times since 2015 to offset her debt before the USDA even foreclosed on her property, according to her lawyer. The best way to keep the government from garnishing federal benefits is to file for bankruptcy, attorneys said.

“It really undermines the concept of giving access to homeownership to a population who might not otherwise have been able to afford it,” said Rhiannon Hampson, former USDA rural development director for Maine who stepped down in January before President Donald Trump was inaugurated. “The irony, with all of these fees piled on, is that they can’t afford to get out of it.”

The recent wave of foreclosure filings in Maine underscores the government’s failure to monitor a mortgage program that since its founding in 1949 has poured tens of billions of tax dollars into giving the poorest Americans a shot at homeownership.

The USDA does not publicly report how often it files foreclosures. U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat and member of a House appropriations subcommittee overseeing the USDA’s direct loan program, has proposed language in the House agriculture appropriations report for the 2026 fiscal year calling on the agency to regularly report the number of foreclosures and abandoned properties related to the direct loan program. The bill awaits a vote before the full House of Representatives.

The USDA regularly filed foreclosures in Maine prior to the coronavirus pandemic but has rarely done so in recent years, according to Richard H. Broderick Jr., a Maine attorney with whom the agency had contracted to file foreclosures until 2022. Kevin Crosman, the Maine attorney now filing foreclosures on behalf of the USDA, would not comment on why the agency started doing so again.

Reporters visited 12 of the 55 homes in the Bangor Daily News’ core coverage area in May. At least five appeared to be abandoned and in disrepair — with windows boarded up or a sign affixed to the door saying it was being cared for by a New York company — raising doubts that the government will recoup its investments.

The USDA is supposed to take custody of properties purchased with a Section 502 direct loan and begin the foreclosure process when the homeowner becomes incapacitated, dies or has abandoned it, according to the agency’s handbook. Otherwise the properties may languish and lose value.

It really undermines the concept of giving access to homeownership to a population who might not otherwise have been able to afford it.

Agency guidelines do not specify how soon the government should step in after a loan falls into delinquency, but under federal law, lenders cannot foreclose on a property until borrowers have been in default for 120 days.

Nearly a fifth of the USDA’s 159,208 Section 502 direct loans in its active national portfolio — 30,496 — were delinquent as of March, according to internal agency data obtained by the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica. That rate is double what a 1993 internal agency report said was acceptable. But neither the USDA nor the White House would say why the agency is focusing on foreclosures in Maine. Vermont is the only other state in which the USDA has filed a single foreclosure, according to federal court filings.

The foreclosures started just before Trump’s Justice Department sued the state of Maine in April over its inclusion of transgender athletes in girls’ sports, part of a larger spat between Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills. The White House would not say whether the foreclosures are connected in any way to those ongoing conflicts.

The Trump administration is seeking to eliminate the 76-year-old rural homeownership program in the White House’s budget proposal for the 2026 fiscal year. Some of his predecessors, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush, have also sought to cut back the $880 million direct mortgage program, which has bipartisan support in Congress.

A USDA spokesperson said the Trump administration is in the process of reviewing the loans to “understand the magnitude of the problems it has inherited.” The agency noted that in Maine alone, more than 800 properties are considered delinquent and nearly 400 homes are being tracked for foreclosure. The USDA did not respond to additional questions.

In 2013, months after the Caribou woman had abandoned her property, she received a letter at her new residence from the USDA informing her that she had to pay the government $22,000 in missed mortgage payments and late fees or she’d lose the Caribou home, said Cox, her lawyer. He said she did not pay because she did not want the house anymore. The USDA sent her nearly a dozen letters between 2014 and 2015 claiming foreclosure was imminent, but a decade passed before she was served with foreclosure papers this spring.

A sign on the front door says the property is being maintained by a New York City company, which did not return calls seeking comment. A green tarp stretches across missing sections of the roof. Inside, piles of garbage and feces litter the floor.

A real estate broker who inspected the home in June with Cox estimated the value of the house to be around $40,000, a steep depreciation from the 2006 purchase price of $144,000.

During the time since she abandoned the property, what the woman owes USDA continued to balloon, Cox said.

His client now owes the government $393,463, according to court documents — nearly 10 times what the home is worth. Nearly 60% of that comprises interest that accumulated after she defaulted, as well as $91,304 in “preservation and inspection” fees.

“If the USDA had dealt with this back in 2012, they might have gotten most or all of their money back by selling the home” before it deteriorated, Cox said. “They’re not going to collect it now. It’s a huge waste of government resources and money to let this happen.”

Other USDA borrowers simply continue living in their homes long after they default on their loans, accumulating more debt with each passing year that the government does not move to collect.

It’s a huge waste of government resources and money to let this happen.

Christine Ogden had stopped paying the $465-a-month mortgage for her blue saltbox home in the coastal Maine town of Searsport in 2013, according to court documents. She said she told the USDA at the time to take her home after the agency threatened her with foreclosure if she did not pay.

But it took the government until 2019 to attempt to foreclose upon her property. The case was dismissed in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Five years later, in April, she received a summons to appear in federal court to start foreclosure proceedings again.

Ogden now owes $203,787 on what had been a $66,200 mortgage, according to court documents. Half of her debt comprises interest that accumulated after she defaulted, as well as other fees she would not have had to pay had the USDA addressed the delinquency sooner, an analysis by the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica found.

Ogden, who has lived rent-free in the house for 12 years, says she is unable to pay the burgeoning debt and does not know what will happen. The foreclosure will hurt her credit, making it harder for her to get another loan or find rental housing, she said.

“I'm 59,” Ogden said. “I’ll be homeless, basically.”

The owners of another property, in Norridgewock in central Maine, also stopped paying their mortgage — and moved out of the house — years before the USDA foreclosed on the home this spring, court records show. The owners have not appeared to live at the property since at least 2014, according to property tax records, and defaulted on their loan in 2019 — but the government did not file for foreclosure until April.

The owners, it turned out, were violating USDA rules by renting out their home. The tenant, who answered the door when a reporter visited in May after the foreclosure was filed in federal court, would not share his name but estimated that he has paid $100,000 in rent to the owners during the 12 years he said he has lived there. USDA guidelines allow borrowers to rent their homes for up to three years, and only under very narrow circumstances.

Properties purchased under the 502 direct loan program are supposed to be the borrower’s permanent residence and not meant to generate income, according to USDA guidelines. Homeowners can rent out their properties only due to certain life events such as if their families outgrow their current home or if they are moving for a job. But the borrower must still pay the mortgage every month.

The USDA says the owners of the Norridgewock home owe the agency $276,191. The homeowners live in Tennessee, according to foreclosure summons and other court records filed this year by the USDA; they did not respond to calls made to phone numbers listed under their names.

USDA staff based in Maine who once were in close touch with borrowers when they ran into financial trouble now have little to no oversight of Section 502 loans. That’s because a major restructuring in the 1990s eliminated many of the county offices that had managed all aspects of the loans and centralized the servicing of these loans to an office in St. Louis, said Leslie Strauss, a senior policy analyst for the Housing Assistance Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit focused on affordable rural housing.

These changes came on the heels of an internal study in 1991 concluding that centralizing the administration of these loans would result in better service and a lower delinquency rate of about 10%, according to a 1993 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. More than three decades later, the delinquency rate for Section 502 direct loans has nearly doubled to 19%.

Hampson, Maine’s former USDA rural development official who now leads economic development for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said she had been pushing the agency to allow local staff to regain oversight of borrowers’ financial situations “so that we can go out and monitor what’s going on, so that we aren’t caught by surprise.”

But her effort did not gain traction, Hampson said.

As the foreclosures accumulated in Maine in recent months, the USDA website published an advisory directing struggling Maine borrowers to call the St. Louis office for help. But fewer staff members are available to respond after Trump’s recent cuts to the federal workforce.

As of early May, 1,536 employees — nearly a third of the rural development office — had taken the buyout, according to USDA documents outlining the results of the Trump administration’s two financial incentive offers to quit. Of those, 197 worked in the St. Louis office.

“We can’t afford failure,” Hampson said of the long-delayed foreclosures leading to insurmountable debt. “The onus is on the government to make sure that we’re providing the right kind of safety nets to prevent this sort of thing from happening.”

Michael Shepherd, Sasha Ray and Paula Brewer of BDN contributed reporting. Mariam Elba of ProPublica contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sawyer Loftus, Bangor Daily News.

A thousand percent, there’s comic inspiration behind it. It’s a loaded question, because there’s always the Donner Superman, which is like—I was reading comic books as a kid, but then seeing Donner’s Superman, it just crystallized everything in my mind because it jumps off the page and it’s so different seeing a real person, like real Superman. And I remember as a kid, it enhanced my love for the medium.

And then for me personally, I think it’s like it’s Nolan’s Batman, when they asked him why Bats and he’s like, “Bats scare me.” Right? I think for me, I’m a big chicken when it comes to flying. I don’t love to fly because turbulence and because who loves turbulence? But I think that there’s something profoundly powerful and almost spiritual at times with the idea of flight. And I don’t mean to sound like it’s corny or anything, but I just think it’s a real thing.

Again, it’s constantly a motif that I play with in my fine art due to the fact that there’s a freedom in it when you’re so high up and you can see the world and how small it really is. And it puts things in perspective, at least for me, of how small certain problems are. And just again, there’s a freeness to it. So yeah, I think again, that’s how flying correlates. It’s that question, too, if you could have any superpower, and my corny ass always would pick flight first over everything.

I mean, embracing the impossible and putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation can yield really interesting results. I think with flight, especially in comics, there’s always a bit of that learning curve.

With some of these characters, especially with my main character, FLYBOY, I try to infuse a bit of myself or a bit of the familiar in them so that they can feel relatable. I think that in the golden age, or the silver age of comics, there was thought given to some of these abilities or powers, but not … It didn’t go as in depth as it could or should in terms of what these powers really could mean for that bearer, the person that has to learn how to manipulate these things. And it’s the great power, great responsibility, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what if there is a person that can fly but is afraid of heights? Again, trying to get a little deeper than just the wish fulfillment aspect of it.

Your bio says that you’ve been on a quest with some of your art to readdress modern mythology. What other parts of our culture or history do you want to explore through your art, either through more sculpture or paintings or comics?

Comics are a great way to explore more because it’s always narrative first. And I think within the world of FLYBOY that I’ve created, there is a lot of revisionist history. This world isn’t necessarily ours, one for one, but it sort of parallels and I appreciate history, but also just this opportunity to re-contextualize certain moments and certain ideas.

In my work early on, I had this series, it was called the Negro Mythos, Black Mythos series. The simplest form of explanation was that it was me appropriating all of these white superheroes that I grew up with loving that were archetypal males and making them people of color. And when you do that, I think you reframe a lot. You change that story inherently.

I mean, think about, shit, a few years ago, the outrage that happened when Warner Brothers at one point was talking about Michael B. Jordan being the Black Superman or the next Superman, not the Black Superman, but he is Black and he was going to be Superman and what that means, but even how that changes from a historical context and then just a narrative context.

And so I think with comics you can obviously do a lot more directly, whereas in fine art, it’s a lot more subjective and you leave the audience to add in their own things within the work or the piece. And so again, I appreciate both paths, but I think having been on the path of fine art for so long, now being able to really just tell a story and be very direct with the narrative is something that I’m looking forward to.

Are there particular pieces of history or any stories or mythos that you have a direct change you want to make or a direct thing you want to say or explore? I know that FLYBOY draws a lot from the Tuskegee Airmen.

I won’t give too much up because hopefully we’ll create a new fan base and have some readers that are interested in following the journey. But yeah, I think it does start there. I don’t want anything that I do to feel like medicine. I don’t want it to feel like I’m trying to teach someone something. I want to entertain, I want to inform, but I don’t want to have it feel medicinal. And so in looking at this story and creating this story, I did look at the Tuskegee trials and things within American history and more specifically Black American history and pull from certain moments and elevate certain moments or change certain moments to benefit a character, whether negatively or positively as just this form of observation of history.

This is a history that we can never escape, and it’s one that continues to shape us, continues to shape our country. It’s a big part of our narrative, so just really leaning into it, I think in a way to, as a point of pride almost, right? What we are able to endure, what we’ve survived as a people, as Black Americans, as Americans. So yeah, just again, finding opportunities to explore these moments.

I think it’s not dissimilar to, excuse me, when you look at Hellboy in the context of using Nazi Germany, using the history of this character and infusing it with, again, the real big bads, which were Nazis and this war with America and all of the history that we share, but the embellishment of…. yeah, there was a double human hybrid that came down, and within this time, these things and these events happened around that. That’s always fun when you can mix history with a new narrative and a new twist.

I’m glad you brought up the directness of comics. It’s a great way to just either take a stance or follow a specific path and really have a point of view and a fun narrative on it. Congrats on taking this dive into the world of comics with the FLYBOY Kickstarter campaign. We touched on the impact Superman had on you earlier, but if you had your pick of the litter, say if DC or Marvel or Dark Horse even came to you and said, “Hebru, do whatever you want,” is there an existing character you would want to create for?

Oh man, this is the question that you have the conversation with your nerd homies over and over again. And then, of course, you ask me and I’m like, my mind goes blank, and it’s like, I don’t want to say the wrong thing because there’s so many. But I mean, my two favorites … Man, this is tough. Let me try and make this as hard as it needs to be. Yeah, dude, I think I’m going to throw a curve-ball here…

What’s that?

I’m going to go away from the Marvel cannons, the DC cannons. I’m going to say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

When you look at stories like Ronin and where that arc goes and goes, I feel like there’s still so much to do with those characters, and that was a big part of my childhood. I was more of a Marvel fan because I fell in love with X-Men heavy duty, and then all of their offshoots, X-Factor, et cetera. But Turtles were something special. And I think that it sort of melded all of that because I found the black and white comics when I was a kid and I really liked them. That led me to Daredevil and then back to Turtles. They had the cartoon, they had the figures, the collectible just started that insatiable collecting thing for me.

But it’s always been like Turtles… It’s something about those guys. I think it’s the brotherhood, the camaraderie. It’s this idea of them not being wanted by society because of how they look, who they are, what they are, what they can do. It’s just a fun world, and it’s a world within worlds. There’s Dimension X, there’s different planes, and it’s so many different rich characters to play with. I would say definitely Turtles. Long-winded answer, but I would say Turtles first.

The worlds within worlds comment is great. Right now they have a crossover series with Naruto. I think there was a TV special where multiple versions of the characters across television met each other. Of the core four, do you have a favorite between Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, or Michelangelo?

Oh, it’s Raph all day, baby. It’s Raph all day. It’s funny because I like Mikey. I like Don. Leo’s probably my least, just because I think he is most likely the Cyclops, like the leader who doesn’t get the credit. But I think with Donatello and Mikey, it’s all dependent upon which version of them. There’s some versions that are way stronger and way better than others, but I think that’s the beauty of the books and the series, the different series and the different writers that take on the challenge of writing for these characters. So yeah, Raph is pretty consistently an asshole, mean, tough, rough, and love it, love it, love it.

He’s a lovable asshole, though. We love to be frustrated by him.

Yes, 100 percent. 100 percent. With this process, it feels like a pinching moment. I’m really hopeful that we can hit our mark and this can be successful because this is really a childhood dream that I’ve had for a long time and everything in due time. It’s been a long road to this point, and I’m super, super, super excited and put in a ton of work in crafting this long form story that just has a lot of twists and turns and ways to go, and this being sort of the entry into that world. I’m just really excited for people to dig in and find it.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Sam Kusek.

Freelance photojournalist Matthew Reamer was shot by police in the back with a crowd-control munition while he was covering a protest against the Trump administration in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

The protest in downtown Los Angeles was one of hundreds of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide to counter a military parade attended by President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also followed days of protests in the city and nearby towns against recent federal raids, part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Reamer told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he arrived around 10 a.m. to cover protests outside Los Angeles City Hall for German outlet Die Zeit. When Reamer left a few hours later to file some photos, he described the protest as still peaceful.

Reamer returned to the protest around 5 p.m., after he learned that Los Angeles Police Department officers were using force to disperse the crowds.

Reamer started taking photos as police fired crowd-control munitions to disperse the demonstrators. “I was quite close to a few of them. I’m pretty sure they saw me,” Reamer said about the police.

Shortly after, stun grenades and a flurry of shots by the police prompted a small stampede of people, Reamer said. In the chaos, one of Reamer’s cameras fell, and a lens broke.

About 20 minutes after returning to cover the protest, Reamer was taking photos of protesters in the crowd of people when he said police shot him squarely in the back, between his shoulder blades.

“It welted up and bruised and had some minor breakage of the skin,” Reamer told the Tracker. He added that he had been taking photos near the police line and had not heard any dispersal warnings.

Reamer said that he believes he was targeted. It was a “perfect shot,” he said, right in the middle of his back. He also said he was clearly working as a journalist, wearing a press credential from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and carrying two large cameras.

“It was pretty obvious I was a member of the press,” he said. “It did feel like it was intentional.”

After being shot, Reamer said he took a moment to recover and then went back to covering the protest for a few more hours.

Around 8 p.m., Reamer was behind the police line with other journalists as the police surrounded a group of protesters in a tactic known as kettling. After he moved closer to the police, Reamer said an officer turned around, grabbed him and pushed him back with the other journalists.

Reamer told the Tracker that he hasn’t taken any legal action over the incidents.

When reached for comment, the LAPD directed the Tracker to the department’s social media accounts. In a June 15 statement posted to X, the department acknowledged that LAPD officers used numerous “less-lethal rounds” when responding to the protests, but did not address the use of munitions against identifiable press.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Gandhi was booked for his comments about the Indian army during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022 that were allegedly derogatory. After missing the last five hearings in the case, he surrendered in the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alok Verma, who approved his bail. The Congress MP was also told to furnish two personal bail bonds of Rs 20,000 each and provide two sureties of the same amount for being absent in previous hearings.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell head, Amit Malviya, who has spread misinformation on several occasions in the past, was among those who shared the image on social media, claiming the man in black robes seen in the image was a judge. In his post on X, Malviya wrote, “This is the judge who is supposed to be hearing the case against Rahul Gandhi for insulting our Army and brave soldiers. He should immediately recuse himself.” Malviya later deleted his post.

National media panellist of the Congress, Surendra Rajput (@ssrajputINC), also posted the same image with a caption in Hindi that translates to: “This lone selfie of Shri Rahul Gandhi @RahulGandhi is enough to answer the countless allegations against him. Even the judge would only take a selfie if he truly believed in Rahul Ji’s innocence.” (Archive)

However, Rajput later updated the caption and removed the word “Judge”.

Several other X users such as @ravibhadoria, @MrSinha_, @JaipurDialogues, @arvindgunasekar, @ActivistSandeep, Congress spokesperson @priyanka81_INC, advocate and former AICC member @ashokbasoya, Congress Amroha district social media chairman @Afsarali190, journalist @arvindchotia, Congress UP state co-ordinator @akram_premiar, @AvkushSingh (who has often amplified pro-BJP content on X), were among those who posted the aforementioned image saying that it shows Gandhi with the judge who granted him bail in the defamation case. We also noticed that journalist Rohini Singh had reshared one of these posts.

Fact Check

The same day, we found a post with the same image shared by X user @Delhiite_  claiming that the individual in the image with Gandhi is an advocate, not a judge, and that his name is Syed Mahmood Hasan.

He is a lawyer/Advocate not a Judge.
His name is Syed Mahmood Hasan. pic.twitter.com/JYQQoMjdX3

— زماں (@Delhiite_) July 15, 2025

We then did a Google search for Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma, who was the judge in the MP/MLA  special magistrate court in Lucknow that granted the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha bail. We found his details and image on the Allahabad High Court’s website. As is clear from the screenshot of the web page attached below, Justice Verma is not the man seen in the viral photo with Gandhi.

Taking a cue from @Delhiite_’s post, we looked for a Syed Mahmood Hasan to verify whether he was the one in the photo with Gandhi.

We found Hasan’s X account, where his bio reads: “Syed Mahmood Hasan (Advocate), civil court, Lucknow high court, Lucknow bench, Lucknow”. However, the last post by Hasan on X was from May 25, 2020, wishing his followers for Eid.. The post also included a screenshot where he had shared his contact information.

Alt News reached out to Hasan, who confirmed that he was no judge but an advocate.

We also verified that the number we called was actually Hasan’s by double-checking his contact information on his advocate profile on the website soolegal.com. The last four digits of his contact number on the website matched the number we contacted.

Hasan’s pictures on his X profile also match the man seen with Rahul Gandhi in the viral image.

Additionally, if he were a judge, then there would be a record of judgments he passed. However, all records found under Syed Mahmood Hasan pointed to him being an advocate/lawyer.

We also came across a Facebook post made by Hasan where he clarified that he is not a judge, but an advocate.

Thus, claims that LoP Rahul Gandhi clicked a selfie with a judge are completely false. The man in the viral image is Syed Mahmood Hasan, an advocate.

The post Man seen with Rahul Gandhi in viral selfie is not the judge who granted him bail but a lawyer appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 14, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday delivered a blistering dissent to an emergency decision that enables President Donald Trump to plow ahead with laying off nearly 1,400 employees at the Department of Education while a case challenging the plan plays out.

“This case arises out of the president’s unilateral efforts to eliminate a Cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago,” wrote Sotomayor, joined by her liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “As Congress mandated, the department plays a vital role in this nation’s education system, safeguarding equal access to learning and channeling billions of dollars to schools and students across the country each year.”

“Only Congress has the power to abolish the department,” she continued, calling out Trump’s executive order and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s subsequent move to fire half the agency’s workforce. “When the executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.”

Sotomayor explained that “two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the government to proceed with dismantling the department.”

“That decision is indefensible,” she argued. “It hands the executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave. Unable to join in this misuse of our emergency docket, I respectfully dissent.”

The high court’s right-wing majority—which includes three Trump appointees—did not write an opinion, as is customary for shadow docket decisions. The administration responded by pledging to proceed with its efforts to eviscerate the department.

“It is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution,” McMahon said in a statement. “We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most – to students, parents, and teachers.”

McMahon and Trump’s mass firing effort—part of a broader effort to shutter the department—had been blocked by a U.S. district court in Massachusetts and the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in response to a lawsuit in which Democracy Forward is representing a coalition that includes the American Federation of Teachers and Service Employees International Union.

“We are incredibly disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Trump-Vance administration to proceed with its harmful efforts to dismantle the Department of Education while our case moves forward,” the coalition said in a Monday statement. “This unlawful plan will immediately and irreparably harm students, educators, and communities across our nation.”

“Children will be among those hurt the most by this decision,” the coalition stressed. “We will never stop fighting on behalf of all students and public schools and the protections, services, and resources they need to thrive.”

The Associated Press reported that “separately on Monday, more than 20 states sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs, and more.”

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

The new regulations establish fines of 20,000 soms (US$230) for individuals, and 65,000 soms (US$740) against outlets found to have violated the law.

“The new law on so-called fake news is just one element of a broader legislative campaign under President Japarov aimed at restricting media, civil society, and public discourse in Kyrgyzstan,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Kyrgyz authorities should repeal the law and reverse their escalating legal assault on the independent press.”

The new false news legislation follows similar amendments that went into force in February. These introduced identical administrative fines for defamation and insult. In both cases, complaints are handled by the police and adjudicated in brief administrative court hearings, which journalists fear will allow authorities to swiftly fine media and avoid a thorough judicial review.

Since Japarov came to power in 2020, Kyrgyz authorities have dramatically expanded their arsenal of laws targeting the press while shuttering critical outlets and jailing journalists. A 2021 law empowers the government to extrajudicially block news websites for what it deems false news, and in 2024, Japarov enacted a Russian-style foreign agent law.

On June 25, parliament passed a controversial mass media that allows the government to determine which individuals and organizations are permitted to publish news. The law has sparked criticism from journalists and international organizations such as CPJ, which urged Japarov to veto the bill. 

The president stated earlier this month that he has not yet reviewed the mass media law and will decide whether to sign or return it after careful consideration.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lauren Wolfe.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Internal Revenue Service is building a computer program that would give deportation officers unprecedented access to confidential tax data.

ProPublica has obtained a blueprint of the system, which would create an “on demand” process allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain the home addresses of people it’s seeking to deport.

Last month, in a previously undisclosed dispute, the acting general counsel at the IRS, Andrew De Mello, refused to turn over the addresses of 7.3 million taxpayers sought by ICE. In an email obtained by ProPublica, De Mello said he had identified multiple legal “deficiencies” in the agency’s request.

Two days later, on June 27, De Mello was forced out of his job, people familiar with the dispute said. The addresses have not yet been released to ICE. De Mello did not respond to requests for comment, and the administration did not address questions sent by ProPublica about his departure.

The Department of Government Efficiency began pushing the IRS to provide taxpayer data to immigration agents soon after President Donald Trump took office. The tax agency’s acting general counsel refused and was replaced by De Mello, who Trump administration officials viewed as more willing to carry out the president’s agenda. Soon after, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, and the IRS negotiated a “memorandum of understanding” that included specific legal guardrails to safeguard taxpayers’ private information.

In his email, De Mello said ICE’s request for millions of records did not meet those requirements, which include having a written assurance that each taxpayer whose address is being sought was under active criminal investigation.

“There’s just no way ICE has 7 million real criminal investigations, that’s a fantasy,” said a former senior IRS official who had been advising the agency on this issue. The demands from the DHS were “unprecedented,” the official added, saying the agency was pressing the IRS to do what amounted to “a big data dump.”

In the past, when law enforcement sought IRS data to support its investigations, agencies would give the IRS the full legal name of the target, an address on file and an explanation of why the information was relevant to a criminal inquiry. Such requests rarely involved more than a dozen people at a time, former IRS officials said.

Danny Werfel, IRS commissioner during the Biden administration, said the privacy laws allowing federal investigators to obtain taxpayer data have never “been read to open the door to the sharing of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of tax records for a broad-based enforcement initiative.”

A spokesperson for the White House said the planned use of IRS data was legal and a means of fulfilling Trump’s campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations of “illegal criminal aliens.”

Taxpayer data is among the most confidential in the federal government and is protected by strict privacy laws, which have historically limited its transfer to law enforcement and other government agencies. Unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer return information is a felony that can carry a penalty of up to five years in prison.

The system that the IRS is now creating would give ICE automated access to home addresses en masse, limiting the ability of IRS officials to consider the legality of transfers. IRS insiders who reviewed a copy of the blueprint said it could result in immigration agents raiding wrong or outdated addresses.

“If this program is implemented in its current form, it’s extremely likely that incorrect addresses will be given to DHS and individuals will be wrongly targeted,” said an IRS engineer who examined the blueprints and who, like other officials, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The dispute that ended in De Mello’s ouster was the culmination of months of pressure on the IRS to turn over massive amounts of data in ways that would redefine the relationship between the agency and law enforcement and reduce taxpayers’ privacy, records and interviews show.

In one meeting in late March between senior IRS and DHS officials, a top ICE official made a suggestion: Why doesn’t Homeland Security simply provide the name and state of its targets and have the IRS return the addresses of everyone who matches that criteria?

The IRS lawyers were stunned. They feared they could face criminal liability if they handed over the addresses of individuals who were not under a criminal investigation. The conversation and news of deeper collaboration with ICE so disturbed career staff that it led to a series of departures in late March and early April across the IRS’ legal, IT and privacy offices.

They were “pushing the boundaries of the law,” one official said. “Everyone at IRS felt the same way.”

The technical blueprint obtained by ProPublica shows that engineers at the agency are preparing to give DHS what it wants: a system that enables massive automated data sharing. The goal is to launch the new system before the end of July, two people familiar with the matter said.

The DHS effort to obtain IRS data comes as top immigration enforcement leaders face escalating White House pressure to deport some 3,000 people per day, according to reports.

One federal agent tasked with assisting ICE on deportations said recent operations have been hamstrung by outdated addresses. Better information could dramatically speed up arrests. “Some of the leads that they were giving us were old,” said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press. “They’re like from two administrations ago.”

In early March, immigrants rights groups sued the IRS hoping to block the plan, arguing that the memorandum of understanding between DHS and the IRS is illegal. But a judge in early May ruled against them, saying the broader agreement complied with Section 6103, the existing law regulating IRS data sharing. That opened the door for engineers to begin building the system.

The judge did not address the technical blueprint, which didn’t exist at the time of the ruling. But the case is pending, which means the new system could still come under legal review.

Until now, little was known about the push and pull between the two agencies or the exact technical mechanics behind the arrangement.

The plan has been shrouded in secrecy even within the IRS, with details of its development withheld from regular communications. Several IRS engineers and lawyers have avoided working on the project out of concerns about personal legal risk.

Asked about the new system, a spokesperson for IRS parent agency the Treasury Department said the memorandum of understanding, often called an MOU, “has been litigated and determined to be a lawful application of Section 6103, which provides for information sharing by the IRS in precise circumstances associated with law enforcement requests.”

At a time when Trump is making threats to deport not only undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens, the scope of information-sharing with the IRS could continue to grow, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica and sources familiar with the matter: DHS has been looking for ways to expand the agreement that could allow Homeland Security officials to seek IRS data on Americans being investigated for various crimes.

Last month, an ICE attorney proposed updating the MOU to authorize new data requests on people “associated with criminal activities which may include United States citizens or lawful permanent residents,” according to a document seen by ProPublica. The status of this proposal is unclear. De Mello, at the time, rejected it and called for senior Treasury Department leadership to personally sign off on such a significant change.

The White House described DHS’ work with the IRS as a good-faith effort to identify and deport those who are living in the country illegally.

“ProPublica continues to degrade their already terrible reputation by suggesting we should turn a blind eye to criminal illegal aliens present in the United States for the sake of trying to collect tax payments from them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement after receiving questions about the blueprint from ProPublica.

She pointed to the April MOU as giving the government the authority to create the new system and added, “This isn’t a surveillance system. … It’s part of President Trump’s promise to carry out the mass deportation of criminal illegal aliens — the promise that the American people elected him on and he is committed to fulfilling.”

In a separate statement, a senior DHS official also cited the court’s approval of the MOU, saying that it “outlines a process to ensure that sensitive taxpayer information is protected while allowing law enforcement to effectively pursue criminal violations.”

The new system would represent a sea change, allowing law enforcement to request enormous swaths of confidential data in bulk through an automated, computerized process.

The system, according to the blueprint and interviews with IRS engineers, would work like this:

First, DHS would send the IRS a spreadsheet containing the names and previous addresses of the people it’s targeting. The request would include the date of a final removal order, a relevant criminal statute ICE is using to investigate the individual, and the tax period for which information is sought. If DHS fails to include any of this information, the system would reject the request.

The system then attempts to match the information provided by the DHS to a specific taxpayer identification number, which is the primary method by which the IRS identifies an individual in its databases.

If the system makes a match, it accesses the individual’s associated tax file and pulls the address listed during the most recent tax period. Then the system would produce a new spreadsheet enriched with taxpayer data that contains DHS’ targets’ last known addresses. The spreadsheet would include a record of names rejected for lack of required information and names for which it could not make a match.

Tax and privacy experts say they worry about how such a powerful yet crude platform could make dangerous mistakes. Because the search starts with a name instead of a taxpayer identification number, it risks returning the address of an innocent person with the same name as or a similar address to that of one of ICE’s targets. The proposed system assumes the data provided by DHS is accurate and that each targeted individual is the subject of a valid criminal investigation. In effect, the IRS has no way to independently check the bases of these requests, experts told ProPublica.

In addition, the blueprint does not limit the amount of data that can be transferred or how often DHS can request it. The system could easily be expanded to acquire all the information the IRS holds on taxpayers, said technical experts and IRS engineers who reviewed the documents. By shifting a single parameter, the program could return more information than just a target’s address, said an engineer familiar with the plan, including employer and familial relationships.

Engineers based at IRS offices in Lanham, Maryland, and Dallas are developing the blueprint.

For decades, the American government has encouraged everyone who makes an income in the U.S. to pay taxes — regardless of immigration status — with an implicit promise that their information would be protected. Now that same data may be used to locate and deport noncitizens.

“For years, the IRS has told immigrants that it only cares that they pay their taxes,” said Nandan Joshi, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is seeking to block the data-sharing agreement in federal court. “By agreeing to share taxpayer data with ICE on a mass basis, the IRS has gone back on its word.”

The push to share IRS data with DHS emerged while Elon Musk’s DOGE reshaped the engineering staff of the IRS. Sam Corcos, a Silicon Valley startup founder with no government experience, pushed out more than 50 IRS engineers and restructured the agency’s engineering priorities while he was the senior DOGE official at the agency. He later became chief information officer at Treasury. He has also led a separate IRS effort to create a master database using products from Silicon Valley giant Palantir Technologies, enabling the government to link and search large swaths of data.

Corcos didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House said DOGE is not part of the DHS-IRS pact.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Finance, which oversees the IRS, told ProPublica the system being built was ripe for abuse. It “would allow an outside agency unprecedented access to IRS records for reasons that have nothing to do with tax administration, opening the door to endless fishing expeditions,” he said.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the department’s internal watchdog, is already probing efforts by Trump and DOGE to obtain private taxpayer data and other sensitive information, ProPublica reported in April.

The Trump administration continues to add government agencies to its deportation drive.

DOGE and DHS are also working to build a national citizenship database, NPR reported last month. The database links information from the Social Security Administration and the DHS, ostensibly for the purpose of allowing state and local election officials to verify U.S. citizenship.

And in May, a senior Treasury Department official directed 250 IRS criminal investigative agents to help deportation operations, a significant shift for two agencies that historically have had separate missions.

McKenzie Funk contributed reporting, and Kirsten Berg and Alex Mierjeski contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by William Turton, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro.

In 2024, Radhika, a promising state-level tennis player, featured in a music video alongside a Muslim singer. Many X accounts were quick to point this out with speculative claims that Radhika’s father killed her because he was unhappy that his daughter starred in a video with a Muslim. Some conjectured that her ‘relationship’ with a Muslim man made her father unhappy.

Among those who made such statements was X account @HPhobiaWatch. On July 11, a day after she was killed, the user posted, “Radhika father killed her because he was angry over she making reels with insta influencer Inamul Haq”. The user insinuated that Deepak Yadav should have killed the Muslim man instead. (Archive)

Radhika father killed her because he was angry over she making reels with insta influencer Inamul Haq

Still what purpose it will serve? Itna hi gussa tha to bulle ko jaake udaate. Usko koi aur mil jayegi reel banaane ke liye aur ye jail me sadegapic.twitter.com/XsGJI0lqvF https://t.co/tG2fiQkUGu

— Hindutva Knight (@HPhobiaWatch) July 11, 2025

Media outlet News24 also claimed that Radhika’s father was unhappy that she appeared in a video produced by a Zeeshan Ahmed. (Archive)

राधिका मर्डर केस : म्यूजिक वीडियो से गुस्से में था पिता

◆ ज़ीशान अहमद द्वारा प्रोड्यूस वीडियो में राधिका आई थी नजर #RadhikaYadav | Tennis Player Dead in Gurugram | Radhika Yadav pic.twitter.com/vsh6qKioX8

— News24 (@news24tvchannel) July 11, 2025

Another X user, @iiamkrshn, posted a ‘meme’ showing Deepak Yadav’s picture with the text “Bulle se shadi karke vaise hi marne wali thi, Pahle hi maar dia toh kya galat kiaa”. (“She was going to die anyway after marrying a Muslim, what’s wrong with killing her first?”)

Note that ‘Bulla’ is an alternative term to refer to Muslims in place of the derogatory slur ‘Mulla‘, which is more prone to getting flagged under X’s community guidelines. (Archive)

Chad Deepak Yadav pic.twitter.com/74zwiy6cY7

— कृष्णा (@iiamkrshn) July 11, 2025

X account @KreatelyMedia and @SaffronSunanda, both of which have been flagged by Alt News for misinformation and posts inciting communal hatred several times (see here and here), also shared similar claims. (Archives 1, 2)

Click to view slideshow.

X user @dudeitsokay urged his followers to be like Deepak Yadav, who, the user claims, ‘did the right thing’ after he found out his daughter was ‘nachaniya‘ (dancer) and a ‘honda sherni‘. The latter term is possibly a crude distortion of Hindu sherni or lioness and could refer to women who seemingly conform to Hinduism but are actually secular and indulge in interfaith relationships. (Archive)

> be deepak yadav
> provided education to his daughter
> gave her freedom & evrything
> found out she was a nachaniya + honda sherni
> did the right thing pic.twitter.com/KEBZ67USqC

— Idc. (@dudeitsokay) July 11, 2025

Several other X accounts shared similar claims that the reason for Radhika’s killing was her involvement with a Muslim. (Archives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Fact Check

Several news outlets reported that Deepak Yadav disapproved of Radhika’s tennis training career and could not stand his daughter’s success “as she gradually climbed the ranks internationally in the doubles category”.

The Gurugram police said that Radhika used to train aspirants by booking tennis courts at different places, which her father objected to. According to an Indian Express report, she was coaching many high-profile clients. During questioning, the father claimed that locals taunted him for being dependent on his daughter whenever he stepped out. It was later revealed that Deepak was financially well off with good rental income from various properties and was not dependent on his daughter’s earnings. However, he was upset with the taunts.

Another Indian Express report, citing the police, said that a dispute over this issue led Yadav to shoot his daughter. “He had asked her several times to stop running her academy,” a police spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Taking cue from the viral claims, Alt News found the full music video in which Radhika featured on Facebook. It was released by a production company called Little Lion Films on June 20, 2024, and the song was titled Karwaan, sung by Inaam Ul Haq. We also found Inaam Ul Haq’s Facebook profile, where he posted a statement clarifying the misleading rumours.

“…Yes, I had worked with Radhika. I had shared my music with her the Karwaan song, two Krishna bhajans, and Saware. Just like I’ve shared my songs with so many other artists — men, women, Hindu, Muslim, everyone. That’s the truth. That’s the only truth. But today, people are twisting that. They’re turning music into motive. They’re calling it love jihad. They’re giving it angles and meanings that break my soul… But today… it’s my own people who are questioning me without knowing anything about me,” the Facebook post read.

In an interview with media outlet News18 India, Haq said that when he shared the final video with Radhika, she said her father loved the song. He also said that the shoot of the music video happened in the presence of Radhika’s mother. He said Radhika had deactivated her Instagram account after the song was released because she was busy with work.

On Instagram, too, Haq maintained that he had “only done a music video with her”, like he had with many others.

On July 13, Radhika’s friend Himaanshika Singh Rajput also addressed the viral claims regarding this being a case of ‘love jihad’ and said, “It was a normal music video that she had shot a year or 1.5 years ago, and her father himself used to drop her at the shoot location. She had done many other shoots too, but all that stopped because her parents were worried about judgment from others. There was always societal pressure, and her parents were very orthodox…”, Himaanshika said in a video.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NDTV (@ndtv)

According to a report by the Hindustan Times, the police are looking into the music video in which Radhika Yadav had played a part, but so far, they have found no link between the murder and the clip. In a video statement, Gurugram police’s public relations officer, Sandeep Kumar, said that the claims related to the music video were “rumours” and that nothing of this sort has been confirmed in the ongoing probe so far.

Alt News also reached out to the Station House Officer (SHO) of Sector 56 police station in Gurugram (where the case is registered) for further clarification on these claims. The SHO, Vinod Kumar, rubbished the communal claims that Radhika’s ‘involvement’ with a Muslim man was the reason for her killing. “Nothing of this sort is true… What is going on in their house, they would know. Others have no business saying such nonsense. No such thing (communal angle) has come to the fore. Whatever has come forth has been filed, and we have informed the PRO…” Kumar told Alt News.

Thus, the murder of tennis player Radhika Yadav has been given a misleading communal spin by several social media users. These users claimed that Deepak Yadav was unhappy with his daughter’s involvement with a Muslim man and therefore killed her. Some of them also went to the extent of justifying his actions. However, Alt News found these were unsubstantiated theories. So far, no such communal narrative has emerged in police investigation.

The post ‘Involved with a Muslim man?’ Radhika Yadav’s killing by father sparks flurry of misleading communal claims appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

Freelance photojournalist Madison Swart was struck with a crowd-control munition fired by law enforcement while covering protests in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

The protest in downtown Los Angeles was one of hundreds of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide to counter a military parade attended by President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also followed days of protests in the city and nearby towns against recent federal raids, part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Swart told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was separated from the journalists she was reporting alongside for safety, and was repeatedly shot with crowd-control munitions by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies while on a terrace above the main protest.

When she was able to reconnect outside City Hall with the other journalists — freelance journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel and Ryanne Mena of the Los Angeles Daily News — the group tried to cross a nearby thoroughfare during what appeared to be a lull in the action.

“There was the sheriff’s line and they were very far ahead, we weren’t anywhere near them,” Swart said. “We thought it was a good time to cross, but just as we started to do that they started shooting at us.”

In footage Swart shared with the Tracker, she films alongside two other journalists — including Beckner-Carmitchel — as they cross the street approximately 50 feet in front of a crowd of protesters. After a sudden pop, the camera jolts and the trio turns back in the direction they had come.

“That hurt,” Swart is heard saying moments later.

She told the Tracker that she was struck in the leg with what she believes was a tear gas canister.

“It’s hard to know what the fuck they’re shooting at us, because they’re just shooting so many different things. It felt heavy and hot, and it hit my thigh and it was stuck on my leg for a second because I had a battery pack in my pocket,” she said.

“There were too many things going on, so I didn’t actually look at what it was and I didn’t want to touch it,” Swart added. “So I just remember using my shirt to kind of flip it off of me and it didn’t end up leaving a mark, but it was hot and it was heavier than the things that were being shot at me on the terrace.”

In a statement emailed to the Tracker, the Sheriff’s Department said it prioritizes maintaining access for credentialed media, “especially during emergencies and critical incidents.”

“The LASD does not condone any actions that intentionally target members of the press, and we continuously train our personnel to distinguish and respect the rights of clearly identified journalists in the field,” a public information officer wrote. “We remain open to working with all media organizations to improve communication, transparency, and safety for all parties during public safety operations.”

Reflecting on both of her experiences that day, Swart said, “It’s scary how many journalists have just been hurt these past few weeks.

“So many of us already have PTSD: How much of this is going to sit with us for a while? But the work is important, so stopping isn’t an option,” she continued, adding of law enforcement, "They need to stop, that’s the option.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Freelance photojournalist Madison Swart was shot with multiple crowd-control munitions by sheriff’s deputies while covering protests in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

The protest in downtown Los Angeles was one of hundreds of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide to counter a military parade attended by President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also followed days of protests in the city and nearby towns against recent federal raids, part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Swart told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was covering the protest alongside other members of the press when Los Angeles Police Department officers deployed tear gas and she became separated from her “press safety buddies.”

“I ended up on a terrace and I thought I was safe because on the street below was where the action was happening,” she said. “Then, all of a sudden, I feel, like, shooting at me.”

She said that it was only then that she noticed Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies coming across a bridge nearby and shooting at her. Initially the rounds hit the ground at her feet. Then they hit her chest.

“I start to move, but then realize that there’s absolutely nowhere for me to go except forward to where the sheriffs are shooting,” Swart said. “So, I start to go do that. And I’m holding up my press card. I have ‘Press’ labels everywhere, all over me, and I’m holding up my camera in a kind of surrender while moving forward and saying, ‘I’m press! I’m press! I’m press!’”

The photojournalist said none of it made a difference.

“They shoot again, and I kind of just step backward and I’m not sure where to go. And then I try to go again, and then they shoot me again,” Swart told the Tracker. “They eventually let me go forward, and that was where I got the bruise.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Florida Democratic Congressmember Maxwell Frost joins us to discuss how he observed horrific conditions in Florida’s new immigration detention jail in the Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” when he joined other lawmakers in a visit. “I saw myself in those cages. It was a lot of people my age that looked like me,” says Frost. “The administration is essentially trying to ethnically cleanse the country.” We also speak with a reporter at the Miami Herald, which reports hundreds of detainees at the Everglades immigration prison have no criminal records or charges, contradicting claims by the Trump administration. The newspaper recently published a list of people detained or believed to be detained at the facility, helping families locate their loved ones.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

X user @iUdhoke shared the viral video on July 3 and said that the EAM finally admitted to the loss of multiple fighter jets to Pakistan. (Archive) 

India’s EAM Jaishankar has finally admitted the loss of multiple fighter jets to Pakistan, including three Rafales.

“It was very unfair of Pakistan to target Indian jets” said Dr Jaishankar. pic.twitter.com/Wkl4faLyoK

— ਜਸਪਿੰਦਰ ਕੌਰ ਉਦੋਕੇ (@iUdhoke) July 3, 2025

Another X user, @TacticalTribun, also posted the video with similar claims. However, the post was later deleted. (Archive)

Another user, @MSBaig12, also shared the viral video with similar claims. (Archive)

The video was also widely shared on Facebook. Screenshots below:

Fact Check

We were doubtful about the video’s authenticity because Indian military officials have so far not given any numbers regarding the number of fighter jets lost in the conflict after India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7. While they neither confirmed nor denied the loss of Rafale jets, they did not give out any specific information. Also, the loss of three Rafale jets is a major blow to the country and its defence forces. If the EAM had made such a statement, it would have received much national and global attention and coverage by news outlets, which was not the case.

To verify the authenticity of the viral video, we broke it down into several key frames. A reverse image search on one of them led us to a video uploaded by Newsweek on July 1. We went through the entire video to check if Jaishankar had indeed made the admission.

At the 43:05-minute mark, Jaishankar can be heard saying “…the Pakistanis did attack us massively that night. We responded very quickly thereafter. And the next morning, Mr Rubio called me up and said that the Pakistanis were ready to talk.” Jaishankar was referring to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Notably, he made no mention of India losing Rafale jets to Pakistan’s offensive.

Then, we went through the viral clip thoroughly to check if it was manipulated. We noticed that the lip movements were not in sync with the audio at times, confirming that the viral video was manipulated with audio likely overlaid. The manipulated clip adds the sentence: “We had already lost three Rafales to Pakistan two days ago, so it was very unfair of them to attack; but they did it anyway.”

To sum up, the viral video of S Jaishankar, where he says that India lost three Rafale jets to Pakistan, in the recent clashes following the Pahalgam terror attack, is digitally altered. The EAM did not make any such statement.

The post Viral video of Jaishankar ‘admitting’ that India lost 3 Rafales in clash with Pakistan is digitally manipulated appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

Sangjin Kim, a photojournalist for The Korea Daily, was shot in the back with an impact projectile while covering an immigration protest in Los Angeles, California, on the night of June 11, 2025.

The protest was part of a wave of demonstrations that began June 6 in response to federal immigration raids targeting day laborers across LA. As clashes escalated, President Donald Trump deployed the California National Guard and later the U.S. Marines, actions condemned by Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass.

Kim documented the June 11 protest as demonstrators marched through Koreatown. When tensions escalated into a standoff with police, around 10 p.m., officers with the Los Angeles Police Department opened fire with crowd-control munitions. As projectiles flew, Kim turned to run.

“As I attempted to move away for safety — turning my back and running — I was shot in the back,” Kim told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker via email. “Despite the injury, I remained at the scene and continued photographing.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Independent journalist Mason Lake said federal agents targeted him with crowd-control projectiles while covering an immigration enforcement protest in Portland, Oregon, on July 4, 2025.

Lake, a Portland-based videographer and founder of independent outlet Channel Heed, was documenting a protest at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility at the time.

In one video from the scene posted to YouTube, an officer on the roof of the facility appears to take aim at Lake, whose camera visibly jolts. Lake told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the round went right by his head.

Later, the federal officers aggressively advanced on the crowd, with tear gas deployed for nearly an hour in 15-to-20-minute waves, according to Lake. He described a chaotic scene where officers used tear gas and flash-bang grenades indiscriminately, the hot munition canisters starting fires.

Close to midnight, while the gas thickened and concealed officers’ movements, Lake said he was shot twice — with one projectile hitting his camera monopod and another striking the region between his lower gut and groin, which he also captured on video.

“They did shoot me, but thankfully I had armor on,” he said.

Lake said the projectiles likely came from ICE’s special response team, based on uniform patches he captured on video. Despite the risk of injury or damage to his gear, he emphasized his commitment to preserve history by documenting these events with high-quality footage.

“It’s very disconcerting to see how free press has been trampled,” he said. “The best we can do is push back and make sure the truth isn’t run over.”

In a statement emailed to the Tracker, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin urged journalists to be cautious while covering what she characterized as “violent riots,” and added, “President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem are committed to restoring law and order.”

The Tracker has documented 15 other incidents since 2020 in which Lake has been assaulted while covering Portland protests.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Hostilities between the neighbors spiked in recent weeks after a Cambodian soldier was killed in a shooting incident on May 28 along a contested border area.

Since then, some border areas have seen closures, Cambodia has petitioned the International Court of Justice and banned some Thai imports, and Thailand has suspended its prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, amid negative reaction to a leaked phone call with former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

“This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess, and set our targets to reform our military,” Hun Manet said during a ceremony at a military training center.

(Agence Kampuchea Presse via AFP)

Cambodia’s parliament enacted a law in 2006 that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months. The law hadn’t been activated previously.

The CIA’s World Factbook estimates that Cambodia’s military includes around 200,000 personnel; it says Thailand’s military has around 350,000.

During his speech on Monday, Hun Manet called for Cambodia to increase its military budget and for Thailand to reopen the border crossings it had closed.

Includes reporting from Agence-France Presse and the Associated Press.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

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This article is co-published with The Texas Newsroom and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t want to reveal months of communications with Elon Musk or representatives from the tech mogul’s companies, arguing in part that they are of a private nature, not of public interest and potentially embarrassing.

Musk had an eventful legislative session in Texas this year. In addition to his lobbyists successfully advocating for several new laws, Abbott cited the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as the inspiration for the state creating its own efficiency office and has praised him for moving the headquarters for many of his businesses to the state in recent years.

As part of an effort to track the billionaire’s influence in the state Capitol, The Texas Newsroom in April requested Abbott and his staff’s emails since last fall with Musk and other people who have an email address associated with some of his companies.

Initially, the governor’s office said it would take more than 13 hours to review the records. It provided a cost estimate of $244.64 for the work and required full payment up front. The Texas Newsroom agreed and cut a check.

After the check was cashed, the governor’s office told The Texas Newsroom it believed all of the records were confidential and asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office referees disputes over public records, to allow the documents to be kept private.

Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public information coordinator, gave several reasons the records should not be released. He argued they include private exchanges with lawyers, details about policy-making decisions and information that would reveal how the state entices companies to invest here. Releasing them to the public, he wrote, “would have a chilling effect on the frank and open discussion necessary for the decision-making process.”

Taylor also argued that the communications are confidential under an exception to public records laws known as “common-law privacy” because they consist of “information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public, including financial decisions that do not relate to transactions between an individual and a governmental body.”

He did not provide further details about the exact content of the records.

The language Abbott’s office used appears to be fairly boilerplate. Paxton’s office, in an explanation of the common-law privacy exception on its website, mentions that “personal financial information” that doesn’t deal with government transactions “is generally highly intimate or embarrassing and must be withheld.”

But Bill Aleshire, a Texas-based attorney specializing in public records law, was appalled that the governor is claiming that months of emails between his office and one of the world’s richest people are all private.

“Right now, it appears they’ve charged you $244 for records they have no intention of giving you,” Aleshire said. “That is shocking.”

Aleshire said it’s not unusual for government agencies to tap the common-law privacy exception in an attempt to withhold records from the public. But he’s used to it being cited in cases that involve children, medical data or other highly personal information — not for emails between an elected official and a businessman.

“You’re boxing in the dark,” Aleshire said. “You can’t even see what the target is or what’s behind their claim.”

Aleshire added that due to a recent Texas Supreme Court ruling, there is effectively no way to enforce public records laws against Abbott and other top state officials. He called the decision an “ace card” for these politicians.

The case dealt with requests to release Abbott and Paxton’s communications in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde. The high court ruled that it is the only body that can review whether these officials are in compliance with public records laws.

Kevin Bagnall, a lawyer representing Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, also wrote a letter to Paxton’s office arguing the emails should be kept secret. He cited one main reason: They contain “commercial information whose disclosure would cause SpaceX substantial competitive harm.”

Most of the rest of Bagnall’s letter, which further explained SpaceX’s argument, was redacted.

Musk and representatives for his companies did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Abbott’s spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the records, including whether The Texas Newsroom would be refunded if Paxton withholds them.

In a statement, he said, “The Office of the Governor rigorously complies with the Texas Public Information Act and will release any responsive information that is determined to not be confidential or excepted from disclosure.”

The office of the attorney general has 45 business days to determine whether to release Abbott’s records.

Lauren McGaughy is a journalist with The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration among NPR and the public radio stations in Texas. She is based at KUT in Austin. Reach her at lmcgaughy@kut.org. Sign up for KUT newsletters.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Lauren McGaughy, The Texas Newsroom.