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‘The intern in charge’: Meet the 22-year-old Trump’s team picked to lead terrorism prevention

‘The intern in charge’: Meet the 22-year-old Trump’s team picked to lead terrorism prevention

By Hannah Allam This story was originally published by ProPublica When Thomas Fugate graduated from college last year with a degree in politics, he celebrated in a social media post about the exciting opportunities that lay beyond campus life in Texas. “Onward and upward!” he wrote, with an emoji of a rocket shooting into space. His career blastoff came quickly. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official…

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‘Big Balls,’ Edward Coristine, is officially a full-time government employee

‘Big Balls,’ Edward Coristine, is officially a full-time government employee

Wired reports: Although Elon Musk has said that he is largely exiting his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), at least three of his early operatives and key lieutenants throughout his government takeover have recently become full-time government employees. Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, and Ethan Shaotran’s employment designations at the General Services Administration (GSA) have been officially converted to full-time from the restricted special government employee classification that limited their time in government to a period of…

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Ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects

Ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects

The Guardian reports: Reports of falling insect numbers around the world are not new. International reviews have estimated annual losses globally of between 1% and 2.5% of total biomass every year. Widespread use of pesticides and fertilisers, light and chemical pollution, loss of habitat and the growth of industrial agriculture have all carved into their numbers. Often, these were deaths of proximity: insects are sensitive creatures, and any nearby source of pollution can send their populations crumbling. But what [Daniel]…

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Trump follows Soviet Union and Nazis in an effort to control science

Trump follows Soviet Union and Nazis in an effort to control science

The New York Times reports: Who could argue with setting a “gold standard” for science? Actually, thousands of scientists from around the country. President Trump has ordered what he called a restoration of a “gold standard science” across federal agencies and national laboratories. But the May 23 executive order puts his political appointees in charge of vetting scientific research and gives them the authority to “correct scientific information,” control the way it is communicated to the public and the power…

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Trump employs antisemitism to serve his political interests

Trump employs antisemitism to serve his political interests

Peter Baker writes: In the Oval Office one day last week, President Trump renewed his no-holds-barred attack on the nation’s oldest university. “They’re totally antisemitic at Harvard,” he declared. Just 10 hours later, he posted an image of himself striding down a street with the caption, “He’s on a mission from God and nothing can stop what is coming.” Shown in the shadows, watching with approval, was a cartoon figure commonly seen as an antisemitic symbol. The appearance of the figure, the alt-right mascot…

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U.S. scientists warn that Trump’s cuts will set off a brain drain

U.S. scientists warn that Trump’s cuts will set off a brain drain

The New York Times reports: Ardem Patapoutian’s story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1986 at age 18 after fleeing war-torn Lebanon. He spent a year writing for an Armenian newspaper and delivering Domino’s at night to become eligible for the University of California, where he earned his undergraduate degree and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience. He started a lab at Scripps Research in San Diego with…

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Musk calls Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ a ‘disgusting abomination’

Musk calls Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ a ‘disgusting abomination’

NBC News reports: Elon Musk issued a blistering criticism of the massive Republican bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday, posting on X that it is a “disgusting abomination.” “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and…

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Trump wants to cut tribal college funding by nearly 90%, putting them at risk of closing

Trump wants to cut tribal college funding by nearly 90%, putting them at risk of closing

By Matt Krupnick for ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica The Trump administration has proposed cutting funding for tribal colleges and universities by nearly 90%, a move that would likely shut down most or all of the institutions created to serve students disadvantaged by the nation’s historic mistreatment of Indigenous communities. The proposal is included in the budget request from the Department of the Interior to Congress, which was released publicly on Monday. The document mentions only the…

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Troop casualties in Ukraine war near 1.4 million, study estimates

Troop casualties in Ukraine war near 1.4 million, study estimates

The New York Times reports: Nearly one million Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the country’s war against Ukraine, according to a new study, a staggering toll as Russia’s three-year assault on its neighbor grinds on. The study, published on Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that close to 400,000 Ukrainian troops have also been killed or wounded since the war began. That would put the overall casualty figure, for Russian and…

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Milwaukee inmate admits writing Trump threat letters to frame immigrant, records show

Milwaukee inmate admits writing Trump threat letters to frame immigrant, records show

WISN 12 News reports: When United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem publicly praised the arrest of Ramon Morales-Reyes as the suspect initially believed to be responsible for writing a letter threatening to shoot President Donald J. Trump, it added fuel to the already fiery debate over immigration in America and Southeast Wisconsin. However, Noem’s definitive identification of Morales-Reyes, 54, as the person who wrote the letter was inaccurate, according to newly filed records. Milwaukee County prosecutors, on…

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‘Worse than McCarthyism’: Historian Ellen Schrecker on Trump’s war against universities and students

‘Worse than McCarthyism’: Historian Ellen Schrecker on Trump’s war against universities and students

  We speak with esteemed historian scholar Ellen Schrecker about the Trump administration’s assault on universities and the crackdown on dissent, a climate of fear and censorship she describes as “worse than McCarthyism.” “During the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left. … Today, the repression that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., it attacks everything that happens on American campuses,” says Schrecker. “The damage that the Trump…

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Rep. Dan Goldman: ICE is engaged in ‘Gestapo-like behavior’

Rep. Dan Goldman: ICE is engaged in ‘Gestapo-like behavior’

  “This is Gestapo-like behavior where plain-clothes officers wearing masks are terrorizing immigrants who are doing the right thing by going to court, following up on their immigration proceedings and trying to come into this country lawfully, which is through asylum.” […] “I was a federal prosecutor for ten years, right there. I worked with the Department of Homeland Security, I worked with ICE agents, I worked with Homeland Security’s investigations. I have never seen any plain-clothes officer wearing a…

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Time for introspection on both sides of the Middle East conflict

Time for introspection on both sides of the Middle East conflict

David N. Myers writes: Many Jews, in Israel and abroad, are unable or unwilling to recognize the depths of suffering in Gaza. Rather than confront the profound moral failings of a brutal campaign that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert recently called “a war of extermination,” they engage in acts of deflection, fastening attention on antisemitism (whose real existence they highlight to the exclusion of other factors), as well as on critics of Israeli policy whom they accuse of being…

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Russia is erasing all traces of Ukrainian identity in occupied Ukraine

Russia is erasing all traces of Ukrainian identity in occupied Ukraine

Kateryna Odarchenko writes: In recent months, US-led efforts to initiate a Russia-Ukraine peace process have focused primarily on the issue of potential Ukrainian territorial concessions. But as negotiating teams discuss technical details and draw lines on maps, almost no attention is being paid to the desperate plight of the millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation. Throughout occupied Ukraine, the Russian authorities are seeking to consolidate their control by eradicating all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity while…

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