Politics

A South Carolina firing squad botched the execution of Mikal Mahdi last month, with shooters missing the target area on the man’s heart, causing him to suffer a prolonged death, according to autopsy records and his attorneys.

Mahdi, 42, was shot dead by corrections employees last month in the second firing squad execution this year in South Carolina. The state has aggressively revived capital punishment over the last seven months and brought back the controversial firearm method that has rarely been used in the modern death penalty era.

Autopsy documents and a photo reviewed by the Guardian, along with analysis commissioned by Mahdi’s lawyers, suggest the execution did not occur according to protocol, and that Mahdi endured pain beyond the “10-to-15 second” window of consciousness that was expected.

In recent months, whistleblowers have made the plaintiffs in the lawsuit aware of internal records that more closely connect the grant terminations to the administration’s executive orders.

In an internal spreadsheet of dozens of grants marked for cancellation at an NIH institute, the stated reason for termination for several was “gender ideology (EA 14168),” including the grant to Seattle Children’s Hospital.

The rationale appears to reference Executive Order 14168, which banned using federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” again seeming to conflict with the administration’s stance that the termination was not based on the executive orders. The termination dates of the grants, according to the spreadsheet, were after the injunction went into effect.

Another internal document, which provides extraordinary insight into the administration’s efforts to reshape the NIH, also states the executive order was the impetus for grant terminations.

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, after the Trump administration alleged last month in a referral that she may have falsified paperwork for properties she owns in Virginia and New York, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investigation marks a swift and notable escalation against James, a major political enemy of Donald Trump, who was ordered to pay more than $450m in penalties as a result of a lawsuit brought by James’s office that accused him of inflating his net worth to secure financial benefits.

In what appears to be the early stages of the FBI criminal investigation, prosecutors have impaneled a federal grand jury to hear evidence in the eastern district of Virginia after the head of the federal housing agency, William Pulte, last month made the referral to the justice department, the people said.

Health officials on Tuesday confirmed nine cases of measles in Williams County in northwest North Dakota. Daphne Clark, spokesperson for the Upper Missouri District Health Unit, said the measles cases are considered part of an outbreak because health officials believe community spread is occurring without direct contact with known carriers of the illness.

Four people diagnosed with measles were in Williston schools while infectious, the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services said.

Under the first reform, titled “Prioritize Survivor Assistance at Fixed Facilities,” the memo states that “FEMA will discontinue unaccompanied FEMA door-to-door canvassing to focus survivor outreach and assistance registration capabilities in more targeted venues, improving access to those in need, and increasing collaboration with [state, local, tribal, and territorial] partners and nonprofit service providers.”

DeVoe says that like many of the responsibilities being shifted from FEMA to local response, the task of surveying survivors door-to-door will now fall to local and state responders. These groups may be hard-pressed to find the budget and manpower, especially as federal programs and grants keep getting cut.

“California, New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Texas—they’re going to be OK,” he says. “It’s going to be those smaller states—are they going to be OK?”

The IRS, for one, has altered its instructions to federal managers on how to move

Meanwhile, several agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commerce Department, are walking back claims that mass firings of probationary employees were done because of poor performance.

Helena Wooden-Aguilar, EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for workplace strategy, told probationary employees in a memo sent last weekend that “the EPA hereby informs you, as required by the Court, that your earlier termination ‘was not ‘performance’ or fitness based, but was made as part of a government-wide mass termination.’”

The Republican candidate for a state supreme court race in North Carolina has conceded the election after more than six months of contesting the results.

For months, Jefferson Griffin, currently a judge on the North Carolina court of appeals, had fought in courts to try and overturn his 734-vote loss to Allison Riggs in November. Last month, the North Carolina supreme court said that more than 1,300 voters who had successfully cast ballots had to prove their eligibility or else they would be thrown out. On Monday, a federal judge blocked that ruling and ordered state election officials to certify the election.

The prolonged legal contest has raised significant alarm among legal observers because it could lay out a playbook to try to overturn election results after voting has concluded.

Pro-democracy campaigners late Monday announced a nationwide "No Kings" day of defiance on June 14—the same day U.S. President Donald Trump plans to hold a birthday military parade more befitting a dictator than an elected head of state.

More than 100 "No Kings" events have already been registered across the U.S., with many more expected in the weeks ahead of the day of action.

See the full list of planned events and locations here.

The OAN partnership has angered VOA journalists, many of whom have been terminated after Trump began his second term in January as part of his administration's efforts to shrink the federal payroll and silence any perceived criticism of his policies.

“What they have done, in effect, is replace our 83-year legacy of producing reliable, authoritative news with the hard work and commitment of countless journalists with a contract to outsource our news-gathering to a source that is clearly partisan,” said Voice of America White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, who is on indefinite leave.

March exports were $278.5 billion, $0.5 billion more than February exports. March imports were $419.0 billion, $17.8 billion more than February imports.

The March increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $16.5 billion to $163.5 billion and a decrease in the services surplus of $0.8 billion to $23.0 billion.

Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit increased $189.6 billion, or 92.6 percent, from the same period in 2024. Exports increased $41.1 billion or 5.2 percent. Imports increased $230.7 billion or 23.3 percent.

The Washington Postreported late Tuesday that Trump and the USPS Board of Governors are expected to name former Waste Management CEO David Steiner to lead the Postal Service. Steiner is currently the lead independent director at FedEx, a Postal Service competitor.

Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers—a union representing nearly 300,000 active and retired letter carriers—called the decision to place Steiner at the head of the USPS "an aggressive step toward handing America's mail system over to corporate interests."

In March, a federal judge in Washington state ordered a nationwide halt on the administration's ban, saying the government failed to show it would enhance "unit cohesion, good order or discipline".

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did not block the lower court's ruling, keeping the injunction in place.

With the Supreme Court order, that pause will lift while the servicemembers' lawsuit makes its way through lower courts.

"Today's Supreme Court ruling is a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation's defense," Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which are representing the plaintiffs, said in a joint statement.

"By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice," it said.

The officials, who requested anonymity, said the US military could fly migrants to the North African country as early as this week.

The move is likely to spark controversy - Libya has been mired in conflict for more than a decade and the US state department advises Americans not to travel there due to factors like crime, terrorism and civil unrest.

Myers gave Griffin a week to appeal the order before the state board certified the result. Election law expert Rick Hasen predicted that further appeals would be rejected, including by the US Supreme Court, given the strength of the due process and equal protection arguments.

Riggs’ victory would maintain the 5-2 Republican majority on the state Supreme Court. But it would give Democrats a shot at retaking the court before the critical 2030 redistricting cycle, when the court could oversee new legislative maps. That’s one reason the race was so hotly contested. “We’ve knocked over the first domino that we need to for Democrats to take back the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2028,” Riggs told me after the election.

It shouldn’t be considered a major victory for democracy when an election result is certified six months after the contest has concluded. But that’s where things stand in Trump’s America.

“When there are fewer beds for Ice to incarcerate people, there are fewer arrests and less enforcement,” said Beaty, who represents people in Ice and BoP detention. “We don’t want Ice to expand their ability to cage our community members, because we know that will lead to more incarceration and allow them to terrorize our communities even further.”

In rural Lake county, Michigan, Geo Group, another prison corporation, is reopening the closed North Lake correctional facility, which has capacity for 1,800 people and would be the largest immigration detention center in the midwest, according to the local news site MLive.com. Over the years, the facility has housed imprisoned teenage boys, out-of-state incarcerated people and immigrants. But it has sat dormant since it closed in 2022 under the Biden administration.

In 2020, detainees at North Lake went on a hunger strike, alleging they were denied access to their mail and religiously appropriate food, their complaint paperwork was destroyed, and they were placed in extended solitary confinement. Geo Group denied the claims at the time.

In Newark, New Jersey, Geo Group has recently reopened the closed Delaney Hall facility for immigration detainees even as the company faces a pending lawsuit from the city alleging it failed to file required construction permits or allow inspectors inside, according to news site NorthJersey.com.

Two years after Arizona officials revealed a $2.5 billion Medicaid fraud scheme that targeted Native Americans seeking treatment for addictions, the state has recovered just a fraction of the taxpayer funds lost to fraud.

The Arizona attorney general’s office is leading the criminal investigation into the network of behavioral health providers and sober living homes that from 2019 to 2023 exploited the American Indian Health Program to obtain inflated Medicaid payments. Investigators found fraudulent operators didn’t provide the services they’d billed for and sometimes allowed patients to continue the substance use for which they had sought treatment.

The state has so far indicted more than 100 individuals and recouped $125 million — or about 5% of the funds the state estimates it paid to bad actors.

Here is the indictment that lists the names (PDF warning) https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/docs/press-releases/2021/indictments/PHX_9842071_v1_P_2020_0158_SUN_VALLEY_SERVICES_TRUE_BILL_.pdf

A federal appeals court has dealt the Trump administration another loss in its bid to revoke deportation protections and work permits for more than a half-million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, many of them living in South Florida, who were granted entrance into the United States under a humanitarian parole program.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, based in Boston, denied the administration’s request to stop a federal judge’s order blocking the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to end the parole program, which was implemented during the Biden presidency. In doing so, the appellate court found that “en masse termination” of the migrants’ parole is subject to review by the courts — contrary to the Homeland Security secretary’s view.

New federal regulations requiring companies to provide upfront pricing for services such as vacation rentals, hotels, and event tickets go into effect on Monday.

The new rules were initiated by the Biden administration in January and are being enforced under a new administration. They are set to take effect 120 days after being finalized in January.

The rule is intended to eliminate "junk fees," the added costs that are tacked on when a consumer goes to checkout for a purchase. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said it expects the new rule will save consumers up to 53 million hours per year of wasted time spent searching for the total price of tickets and lodging.

The decision permanently blocks the administration from enforcing Trump’s March order that targeted the firm, in which the president blasted Perkins Coie for its ties to the left, including working with the 2016 campaign of Hillary Clinton and liberal donor George Soros, and declared the firm a national security risk.

Howell held that the executive order violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution, and that it amounted to Trump “settling personal vendettas” by taking steps that served “no legitimate government interest, but only the interest of retaliation.”

Setting a crucial precedent, the court held that consumers can sue national or multinational companies in the consumers’ home courts if those companies violate state data privacy laws.

The case, Briskin v. Shopify, stems from a California resident’s allegations that Shopify, a company that offers back-end support to e-commerce companies around the U.S. and the globe, installed tracking software on his devices without his knowledge or consent, and used it to secretly collect data about him. Shopify also allegedly tracked users’ browsing activities across multiple sites and compiled that information into comprehensive user profiles, complete with financial “risk scores” that companies could use to block users’ future purchases. The Ninth Circuit initially dismissed the lawsuit for lack of personal jurisdiction, ruling that Shopify did not have a close enough connection to California to be fairly sued there. Collecting data on Californians along with millions of other users was not enough; to be sued in California, Shopify had to do something to target Californians in particular.

"This remarkably blatant kowtowing to conservative billionaires is a sad reflection of the congressional Republicans' willingness to make devastating cuts to Americans' healthcare to pay for lower taxes for the richest," said Carrk.

The letter was released as congressional Republicans grappled internally with how and how much to cut Medicaid as they seek to offset the massive projected costs of another round of tax breaks for the rich.

Earlier this week, as Common Dreamsreported, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he would not accept more than $500 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade. Cuts of that magnitude would still be the largest in the program's history and would strip health coverage from tens of millions of people.

Credit Suisse Services AG will pay nearly $511 million after pleading guilty in a criminal case to having conspired with wealthy American taxpayers to hide more than $4 billion in at least 475 offshore accounts, the Department of Justice said.

In addition to that plea, the UBS subsidiary also entered into a non-prosecution agreement with prosecutors in connection with U.S. accounts that were booked at Credit Suisse AG Singapore.

“Between 2014 and June 2023, Credit Suisse AG Singapore held undeclared accounts for U.S. persons, which Credit Suisse AG Singapore knew or should have known were U.S., with total assets valued at over $2 billion,” the DOJ said.

The criminal conspiracy to which Credit Suisse admitted guilt allowed “ultra-high-net-worth and high-net-worth individual clients” of the Swiss financial services corporation to evade their U.S. tax obligations from 2010 through 2021, according to the DOJ.

Former Republican lawmaker Joe Walsh said, "Any one of these from a previous president would have rightly caused widespread open speculation from the press and the public that something was genuinely wrong with their brain," he said on X.

"There should be coverage of Trump’s cognitive decline. Massive coverage," the ex-congressman said. "Because it’s an issue. A huge issue."

• Photos of Trump portrayed as the pope
• Photos of Trump as a muscle-bound Jedi (or Sith).
• Trump quote: "I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy."
• Trump was asked, "Your secretary of state says everyone who's here, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process... Do you agree?" The president then replied, saying, "I don't know... I'm not, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know."

60 Minutes Video | How law firms targeted by Trump are responding to White House pressure

However, I quickly learned that few other lawyers — particularly partners at large law firms — were willing to speak on television. The same fear that had prevented Big Law firms from standing up to Trump was now making their partners unwilling to speak out publicly. Even the targeted firms remained quiet.

But with Trump back in office, I decided all of that would have to wait. I promised myself that I would continue to fight Trump and his authoritarian vision for this country with everything I have.

So, I agreed to talk to 60 Minutes, and I promised myself I would not pull punches.

On a chilly April day, I sat down with CBS anchor Scott Pelley and answered his questions about Trump, Big Law and the threat that Trump poses to our legal system and democracy. Then I waited.

In the intervening weeks, a separate drama was playing out at 60 Minutes, involving a frivolous lawsuit by Trump and efforts by a Trump administration nominee to delay the sale of its parent company. I wasn’t sure what it meant for the episode — or my appearance in it.

Under the Republican administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied federal assistance for tornadoes in Arkansas, flooding in West Virginia and a windstorm in Washington state. It also has refused North Carolina’s request for extended relief funding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

White House officials are signaling a new approach to federal emergency response, even as Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threaten to shut down FEMA altogether.

“The Federal Government focuses its support on truly catastrophic disasters—massive hurricanes, devastating earthquakes, or wide-scale attacks on the homeland,” Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, which advises the president on issues of national security, said in a statement to Stateline.

Hughes said state and local governments “often remain an impediment to their own community’s resilience.” He called on states to take on a more extensive role.