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Category: Politics

ICE may use massive troves of data collected by advertisers for surveilling everyone in America

ICE may use massive troves of data collected by advertisers for surveilling everyone in America

Politico reports: The trillion-dollar industry that amasses and shares troves of Americans’ information is confronting a new ethical quandary — the Trump administration’s interest in wielding this data to potentially further its sweeping immigration agenda. Immigration and Customs Enforcement published a request for information in January seeking input on how “commercial Big Data and Ad Tech providers can directly support investigations,” a request that came as the administration was pursuing efforts to expand the United States’ immigration enforcement capabilities. It…

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Why $1bn in Balkans energy contracts are going to an obscure company connected to Donald Trump

Why $1bn in Balkans energy contracts are going to an obscure company connected to Donald Trump

The Guardian reports: On a graffitied Sarajevo backstreet, a path leads past an overgrown patch of garden to a white door. Beyond is the registered office of a company that is on the brink of winning contracts worth more than $1bn. AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is close to securing a concession to build and operate a pipeline across the Balkans to allow fossil gas shipped from the US to replace supplies that come from Russia. “This could be the most…

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Rock-bottom immigration rates may cause longterm harm to the U.S. economy

Rock-bottom immigration rates may cause longterm harm to the U.S. economy

Axios reports: President Trump’s immigration crackdown is causing one of the sharpest slowdowns in U.S. population growth in decades. Economists are beginning to tally the effects, with some warning that the damage will stick around. Why it matters: The policy-driven immigration reversal underway has few modern parallels. The immediate result is evident in monthly employment figures, with the economy cranking out fewer jobs. But over time, fewer immigrants could be a productivity drag lasting well into the second half of this…

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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing back against ‘climate hushing’

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing back against ‘climate hushing’

Elizabeth Kolbert interviews Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: For the last 15 years, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has been Congress’s most outspoken member on climate change. In 2012, he had a sign made up that showed the Earth as seen from space. “Time to Wake Up,” it said. The sign became a prop for a series of speeches the senator delivered on the urgency of the climate crisis. Not long ago, Whitehouse gave his 307th “Time to Wake Up”…

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It’s not just high gas prices – inflation is now spreading through the economy

It’s not just high gas prices – inflation is now spreading through the economy

As the cost of gas stays high due to Middle East tensions, it’s spilling over into U.S. consumer spending more broadly and creating a conundrum for the Federal Reserve. AP Photo/David Zalubowski By D. Brian Blank, Mississippi State University and Brandy Hadley, Appalachian State University Americans don’t need a press release to know that inflation is rising. Gasoline is above $4 per gallon amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the…

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Trump clears way for companies to dodge taxes in havens like Malta, Bermuda, and Cyprus

Trump clears way for companies to dodge taxes in havens like Malta, Bermuda, and Cyprus

The New York Times reports: A year ago, the Trump administration withdrew from a global effort to curb offshore tax-dodging by multinational companies. That decision has been a huge gift to corporate America, enabling companies to avoid at least $40 billion in income taxes since the beginning of 2025. A New York Times review of securities filings from nearly 500 companies showed that they avoided taxes by attributing hundreds of billions of dollars in earnings to low- or no-tax foreign…

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The UAE’s secret role in the war involved dozens of strikes on Iran

The UAE’s secret role in the war involved dozens of strikes on Iran

The Wall Street Journal reports: The United Arab Emirates carried out dozens of airstrikes against Iran beginning in the early days of the war and continuing through the day after the April cease-fire was announced, people familiar with the matter said, a deeper involvement than was previously known in the air campaign led by the U.S. and Israel. The extent of the strikes is further evidence of the country’s growing willingness to protect what it sees as its strategic interests,…

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Sen. Andy Kim: Nothing’s improved since Minnesota — except private prison profits

Sen. Andy Kim: Nothing’s improved since Minnesota — except private prison profits

Mother Jones reports: “I certainly didn’t see anything at Delaney Hall that gives me a sense that things have changed since Minnesota,” Andy Kim told me. The New Jersey senator, a first-term Democrat, drew headlines Monday after he and other protesters were pepper-sprayed by ICE agents during a rally outside Delaney Hall, a private prison in Newark, New Jersey that ICE has repurposed to detain immigrants—nearly 900 as of early April, according to agency data reviewed by NBC News. Kim…

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‘It’s over’: Staffers reveal how Bari Weiss is gutting 60 Minutes

‘It’s over’: Staffers reveal how Bari Weiss is gutting 60 Minutes

The New Republic reports: CBS News chief Bari Weiss has hacked up 60 Minutes to the point that even show staffers have lost faith in the famed magazine show. Weiss’s recent shakeup at 60 Minutes has involved the exit of several of the show’s major personalities, including correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay her report on a notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. Correspondent…

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Judge orders removal of Trump graffiti from Kennedy Center

Judge orders removal of Trump graffiti from Kennedy Center

Reuters reports: A judge on Friday ordered the removal of President ​Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing ‌Arts, ruling that the iconic Washington venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington directed the Trump administration ​to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and ​to eliminate any references to a “Trump Kennedy Center” from official ⁠materials within 14 days. “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear…

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Netanyahu orders Israeli army to seize ‘70% of Gaza Strip’, violating ceasefire deal

Netanyahu orders Israeli army to seize ‘70% of Gaza Strip’, violating ceasefire deal

The Guardian reports: Benjamin Netanyahu has said he has given orders to the Israeli army to seize control of 70% of the Gaza Strip in a move that threatens to torpedo an already fragile ceasefire and create catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the already devastated territory. Under the US-brokered ceasefire in October, the Israeli army withdrew to a demarcation line which gave Israel direct control of 53% of the occupied territory. Since then, Israeli forces have steadily advanced their positions westward…

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Democratic elite must face accountability for Gaza

Democratic elite must face accountability for Gaza

Matt Duss writes: As Democrats continue to struggle to coalesce around a shared message for the future, last week offered some troubling examples of their refusing, once again, to learn from the mistakes of the past. After a delay, the Democratic National Committee finally released the post-2024 election autopsy report that DNC chair Ken Martin had long promised. It was easy to see why he had tried to avoid making it public. In addition to being incomplete and a mess,…

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The high-seas black market that keeps Iran’s sanctioned oil flowing

The high-seas black market that keeps Iran’s sanctioned oil flowing

The Wall Street Journal reports: In this nautical no-man’s-land 45 miles off the coast of Malaysia, tankers laden with sanctioned Iranian oil sit low in the water, waiting to offload their cargo to vessels bound for Chinese refineries. They lower tarps and other objects over the names on their hulls and use black paint to conceal identity numbers. They’re here to carry out an elaborate deception: offshore trysts known as ship-to-ship transfers, in which one vessel offloads sanctioned oil onto…

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The White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.

The White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.

By Robert Faturechi This story was originally published by ProPublica When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism.  The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no…

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Justice Alito’s son quietly operates inside Treasury Department

Justice Alito’s son quietly operates inside Treasury Department

The Daily Beast reports: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s son quietly landed a top job in the Trump administration as his father ruled on huge cases involving the president. Philip Alito, 39, got the political appointee job as a lawyer in the Treasury Department in the early days of Trump’s second term, NOTUS reported. The “sheepish” Alito was acutely aware of the nepotism and laid low once he got through the door, according to sources. The office provides legal and…

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‘I don’t care about the midterms,’ Trump claims as Iran deal remains elusive and he threatens Oman

‘I don’t care about the midterms,’ Trump claims as Iran deal remains elusive and he threatens Oman

Jonathan Lemire and Nancy A. Youssef write: In 2015, then–Secretary of State John Kerry testified before a Senate committee about a new deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear development. After more than a year of talks, with Iran on one side and several nations—including the U.S., China, and Russia—on the other, an agreement was on the table, full of hyper-technical details about what Tehran could and couldn’t do for the next two-plus decades. The U.S. had plenty of other complaints about…

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