Once again, a member of President Donald Trump's administration is threatening to punish private citizens for their speech using the power of the government.

Specifically, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened broadcasters who dare to report on polls the president doesn't approve of. Even if the complaint were valid, it would be difficult to enforce without violating the First Amendment.

"During this election season, there has been a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote on X. "Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics and without informing the public that those Polls lack a scientific, accurate, or even real basis."

Carr is directly adopting Trump's terminology, in addition to his erratic capitalization: The president often uses the term suppression polls to describe surveys that don't reflect in his favor. The implication is that these polls are manufactured to conceal or downplay enthusiasm for Trump or his preferred candidates, making it less likely that his supporters will turn out if they think it's a lost cause.

Carr doesn't single out any offenders, though there are some likely examples. This week, purported pollster Wedgewood Polls revealed that as part of an "experimental project," it had released surveys with "fabricated numbers" that were printed by outlets like FiftyPlusOne (which sussed out the fraud) and The New York Times.

Similarly, in August, Median Strategies withdrew two polls, then revealed that it had fabricated the results for a "social experiment."

Each scenario is deplorable. And depending on what promises were made, it's possible one firm or the other could face legal consequences.

But it's hard to see how a news outlet could face legal reprisal for just reporting the results of a survey it thought was conducted accurately.

"The FCC takes these issues seriously," Carr added. "Broadcasters are prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes. It is important that broadcasters comply with their public interest obligations."

There are indeed rules against news distortion and broadcast hoaxes, but they're narrowly tailored to avoid conflicting with the First Amendment.

"News distortion 'must involve a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report,'" according to the FCC. In addition, "broadcasters are only subject to enforcement if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report. Expressions of opinion or errors stemming from mistakes are not actionable."

The hoax rule, on the other hand, is even less applicable: It involves "broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe," where the broadcaster "knows this information is false" and can foreseeably "cause substantial public harm" but airs it anyway, and the broadcast then "does in fact directly cause substantial public harm."

In other words, neither standard applies to a broadcaster that covered an inaccurate poll, especially without knowing at the time that it was wrong.

"Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong," Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, wrote on X. "FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith."

Carr doesn't specify what he thinks should happen to any offenders, though since he tends to define "public interest" as whatever Trump says, we can make an educated guess.

Right before the 2024 presidential election, The Des Moines Register published a poll that found then–Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three percentage points. Trump ended up winning the state by 13 percentage points, but he was apparently so upset by the poll that he sued both the Register and pollster Ann Selzer, claiming the inaccurate survey constituted "brazen election interference" that violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act.

It was clear at the time that the lawsuit was completely meritless. Just as Carr suggested this week in his social media post, Trump was trying to create an exception to the First Amendment for "fake news."

"In the United States there is no such thing as a claim for 'fraudulent news,'" Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote in a motion on the defendants' behalf. "No court in any jurisdiction has ever held such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims."

A judge agreed and dismissed the lawsuit last month.

"If someone is accurately reporting the results of a poll, that wouldn't be a false statement," UCLA law professor Rick Hasen told The Washington Post at the time. "The poll might have errors in it, but that wouldn't be a false statement."

That's as true then as it is now. Unless he can somehow prove that a broadcaster knew a pollster had faked a survey, there's no way Carr can punish someone for reporting on the results without running afoul of the First Amendment.

"Brendan Carr is not the journalism police. And he is just about the least qualified person in the country to lecture the press about journalistic ethics," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in an emailed statement. "News broadcasters have a First Amendment right to report polling data, even if it proves to be inaccurate, just like they have a First Amendment right to report on Carr and Trump's own countless lies and distortions, even when they turn out to be inaccurate. FCC policies about hoaxes and distortions must be applied narrowly to avoid clashing with the Constitution, if they can be constitutionally applied at all."

The post FCC Chair Brendan Carr Echoes Trump, Threatens Broadcasters Over 'Fake Polls' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

A letter signed by health officials in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, asks the CDC to reconsider

California and Washington asked the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in May to validate a new way to test for measles – but after waiting two months, the CDC denied the request, citing “other competing priorities”, according to a letter from the West Coast Health Alliance to CDC director Erica Schwartz.

The letter, signed by health officials in California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington, asks Schwartz to reconsider and validate a rapid, high-volume measles test in preparation for major outbreaks. The alliance also asked the CDC to create protocols to test for other high-priority pathogens to prepare for future outbreaks.

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© Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump said Wednesday he asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai to rename the Atlantic Ocean on the company’s Google Maps application, a request the tech executive denied. “We seriously looked at the Atlantic Ocean,” Trump said during a rally in Clemson, S.C. The president then praised Google Maps for changing the respective names of the…

President Trump said Wednesday he asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai to rename the Atlantic Ocean on the company’s Google Maps application, a request the tech executive denied. “We seriously looked at the Atlantic Ocean,” Trump said during a rally in Clemson, S.C. The president then praised Google Maps for changing the respective names of the…

Like most of American healthcare, kidney care has for decades been plagued by red tape. The Trump administration says it wants to change that. On Tuesday, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his department's Kidney Care National Plan, which promises to introduce more competition, reduce regulatory barriers, expand patient choice, and overhaul America's kidney transplant system.

Much of the plan focuses on barriers to entry in dialysis care, which treats nearly 558,000 Americans. While dialysis can be performed at home, most patients receive treatment at specialized facilities, which must comply with federal certification requirements governing equipment, staffing, water quality, and patient safety in order to participate in Medicare.

Kennedy argues that regulatory barriers have discouraged competition and innovation, leaving patients with fewer dialysis treatment options. "Dialysis technology is an extraordinary technology," said Kennedy at the press conference, but "because of monopolies in the system and the barriers to new entrants, we have not seen any real improvements in that technology."

Of course, the existence of large or even monopolistic companies is not in itself evidence of a problem, but government regulation can often entrench those companies' positions in the market. "I like the fact that they're recognizing that a lot of regulatory…barriers are contributing to the problem, and that's refreshing to hear," says Jeffrey Singer, a practicing general surgeon and senior fellow at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason. Singer says that removing barriers that prevent new companies from competing with established providers could not only increase choice but also drive down prices.

HHS says that two companies, DaVita and Fresenius Medical Care, control approximately 74 percent of the American dialysis market. As of 2019, roughly a third of Americans lived in areas where the only available dialysis provider was one of those two companies, according to the agency. The administration argues that government regulation has helped entrench this dominance by making it difficult for new providers to enter the market.

To address this, the Kidney Care National Plan suggests a number of reforms, including simplifying certification requirements. HHS also plans to investigate whether dominant dialysis providers have used payment arrangements and legal strategies to secure higher reimbursements without delivering better care.

The 17-page report calls for a review of existing requirements, but it does not specify which regulations will be repealed, nor does it establish a timeline for doing so. It also does not propose any significant reduction in the government's role in financing the distorted market. Instead, the plan largely seeks to make existing government-financed systems such as Medicare more competitive and efficient.

Kennedy has also correctly identified the need for reform regarding kidney donations. Nearly 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant at any given time in America, and 11 people die every day waiting for a kidney. The transplant process is currently managed by Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs), which are federally certified nonprofits responsible for recovering organs from donors and coordinating their transfer. There are currently just 55 federally designated OPOs operating in the United States, and HHS argues that they behave as "regional monopolies." Since no new OPOs have been approved in the last year, the Kidney Care National Plan suggests fast-tracking certification.

The plan also seeks to make living kidney donation easier by reducing financial barriers. Following the passage of the Honor Our Living Donors Act in February, HHS revised federal reimbursement rules so that a donor's eligibility for financial assistance is no longer determined by the transplant recipient's income. Eligible donors can receive up to $6,000 to cover expenses, including travel, lost wages, and childcare.

However, the reforms proposed stop short of allowing kidney donors to receive direct compensation for the organs themselves, which remains prohibited under federal law. "I can sell my blood. Why can't I sell my kidney?" Singer asks.

Peter Jaworski, director of the Georgetown Blood and Plasma Research Group, feels similarly, arguing that financial incentives are available to nearly everyone involved in kidney transplantation except the donors themselves. "According to this plan, it's OK to use incentives to encourage them to be more productive, to actually do a better job," Jaworski tells Reason, referring to transplant surgeons, hospitals, and organ procurement organizations. "The only exception, once again, is the donor who is offering a kidney."

Better solutions exist, according to Jaworski, who points to the proposed End Kidney Deaths Act. The bill, which was introduced by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R–N.Y.) last year, would offer living kidney donors a $50,000 refundable tax credit, distributed over five years. "We have those systems in order to make sure that we can treat patients. That's the point of blood donation. That's the point of plasma donation. That's the point of kidney donation too."

America's plasma market is an excellent example of financial incentives encouraging donation. Unlike many other countries, the U.S. allows plasma donors to be compensated, and despite accounting for just over 4 percent of the world's population, it supplies approximately 68 percent of the plasma collected globally for manufacturing medicines.

"Why do you think America does it? Is it because in America there's way more altruism than in France or Italy or Belgium? No, it's because in the United States you can be paid to donate plasma," argues Jaworski.

The Trump administration appears to recognize that government overreach has stifled competition and restricted patient choice. It also recognizes that living adults donating kidneys will be part of the solution to the long, deadly waiting lists. But its plan leaves the government's outsize role in kidney care largely untouched. For patients facing years on dialysis or waiting for a lifesaving transplant, recognizing the problem is not enough.

The post RFK Jr. Wants To Cut Red Tape in Kidney Care. He Should Go Further. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The battle to save the global court and its capacity to enforce accountability for the most heinous crimes is one struggle with many fronts, writes Marjorie Cohn.

Federal authorities allege state senator L Louise Lucas, a vocal Trump critic, led a ‘criminal marijuana enterprise’

Virginia state senator L Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.

An indictment unsealed on Thursday charged Lucas and six other defendants, including several of her relatives, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Lucas surrendered on Thursday, a justice department spokesperson said.

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© Photograph: Ryan M Kelly/AP

© Photograph: Ryan M Kelly/AP

© Photograph: Ryan M Kelly/AP

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to let the Trump administration gradually end transgender-related medical services for prison inmates who want to be treated as members of the opposite sex.

The post Supreme Court Refuses to Let Trump Cut Transgender Inmate Care appeared first on Breitbart.

Democratic lawmaker says family’s safety is at risk amid death threats and raid making apartment’s address public

• Our reporters answer your questions about ICE, immigration and the midterms

Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar said she plans to move out of her Washington DC apartment after federal agents raided her residence last week as part of a larger immigration investigation.

“I mean obviously, I can’t continue to live there,” Omar told MS Now in an interview that aired on Wednesday. “So we have to figure out where to move to, because our address has been public and with the death threats that I deal with, it’s no longer going to be feasible to be in that house and have my kids, like, visiting off and on, having people track them.”

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© Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

© Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

© Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

An uncanny strength of the second Trump administration has been its ability to be involved in so many scandals that no single one seems to become a dominant story.

Take the most recent allegations about Alina Habba, Trump's former personal defense attorney, who recently landed a plush gig working for Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan banker. Habba will get $50 million over five years to do unspecified work for a company that barely exists, according to The New York Times, while Herrera got a presidential pardon for a 2025 campaign finance charge.

That's just a typical day for the current White House, where the mingling of personal and public business has become routine. Some days, the story is President Donald Trump trying to help himself to taxpayer funds by suing the government he runs, or shipping billions of taxpayer dollars to a foreign mining company partially owned by his sons. Other times, it is Trump selling political influence in the form of digital coins, or his appointees getting caught in naked pay-to-play schemes. If you have a hard time keeping track of it all, I get it. The corruption is so deep and wide that focusing on any singular item becomes difficult.

But that constellation of corruption might finally be breaking through to voters ahead of next month's midterm elections.

A recent Fox News poll found that "government corruption" was the top issue for voters, ranking ahead of inflation and gas prices. Conservative commentators are taking notice.

"What they're saying is, 'Look, we're tired of you getting rich and us getting poor,'" former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said this week.

Tim Carney, senior columnist at the conservative Washington Examiner, also tabs the corruption issue—along with other "avoidable mistakes" such as the Iran War and tariffs—as one of the major reasons why Democrats are likely to win the midterms:

Trump and his family have enriched themselves in this second term in ways more similar to third-world regimes or Cook County than to any previous administration. He and his family operate a financial company that has received heavy investments from Qatar's government. He's sold access to himself by selling otherwise worthless cryptocurrency. The IRS he controls settled a lawsuit with him, promising to pay him $1.8 billion (this settlement was voided by a judge).

Trump is not directly on the ballot next month, of course. And most voters might not be able to tell you the details of any single Trump scandal in detail. Even so, this may turn out to be the defining narrative of the second Trump administration, and there seems to be a growing consensus that Republicans have allowed (if not aided and abetted) his corrupt behavior, so it's time to give Democrats a shot at reining it in.

The Trump corruption issue is like the Biden cognitive decline issue in one key sense: Everyone around the president or even supporting him professionally from afar should be asked about it, and their lies/claims of ignorance should be hung around their necks like dumbbells.

— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) October 20, 2026

Vice President J.D. Vance told journalist Mark Halperin this week that he's "never seen any evidence that anybody's selling access to the president." When Halperin pushed back, Vance doubled down: "What I would say is I don't think there's evidence that the Trump family has become enriched by politics," the vice president said.

So either Vance isn't paying attention, or he's deliberately misleading. "Credit to Vance, it's as good an argument as is available to him," writes Daniel Foster at National Review. "The bad news is it's still not very good."

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The internet nearly crashed on Wednesday as digital security and website administrators scrambled to patch two vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language that serves as the basis for many websites.

"Since its development in the 1990s, PHP has evolved into an essential scripting language for web development and is used across vast swaths of the internet in websites and software," explains Wired. "Everything from publishing systems like WordPress and Drupal to e-commerce platforms like Adobe's Magento are built on PHP."

Amid fears that hackers and AI agents could exploit the security weakness, many websites were taken offline. The National Security Agency and its counterparts in the United Kingdom and the European Union sounded the alarm. Even the prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, was telling website administrators to take the issue seriously.

The potential hacking abilities of advanced AI agents make these sorts of security risks more serious. In this case, however, the problem was also identified with the help of AI.

"Ryan Austin, a researcher at Calif, uncovered the flaws with help from GPT-5.6 Sol, one of OpenAI's most advanced models, during an audit of PHP's source code in August," The Wall Street Journal reports. Another security researcher had flagged the issue years ago, but it had never been fixed because it was considered "considered too difficult to exploit" by human hackers.

This is the future of humanity's digital landscape. "Given the severity of these flaws and PHP's widespread use, we consider this one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory," OpenAI said in a statement on Wednesday. "It highlights how AI can uncover security flaws with internet-scale impact, but the same capabilities can also help attackers rapidly develop offensive tools and exploits."

(A shoutout to Reason's web development team for keeping us up and running, today and every day.)

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"Fanciful fiction." Media outlets also continue to face decidedly nondigital threats over articles and polls that make the president unhappy.

The White House threatened Politico on Wednesday with unspecified "consequences" for publishing "fanciful fiction" in a series of articles earlier this month about White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. If the articles are not retracted, it would trigger "an immediate review of Politico's relationship with the White House, and, of course, consideration of all other appropriate and available legal remedies," wrote White House counsel William O. Scharf in a letter to the media outlet's publisher.

Meanwhile, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued vague threats to broadcasters who cover what Carr called "Fake Polls" intended to "alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm."

These sorts of threats are an affront to the First Amendment, of course. But they are downstream of a more significant issue: the very existence of the FCC.

It's a problem, obviously, that the FCC is run by an authoritarian jackass. But the bigger problem is that the agency contains so many tempting tools for an authoritarian jackass to wield. https://t.co/Q4IJXntkOy

— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) October 21, 2026

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QUICK HITS

• A judge in New Mexico ordered social media giant Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram, among other things) to pay $25 billion for misleading users about data privacy. Last month, a jury found that Meta had violated the state's consumer protection laws 43 million times.
• Officials are trying to pin the blame on Elon Musk for a Starlink slowdown that limited the effectiveness of Ukrainian missile defenses. Musk says the decision was made by the U.S. military and Trump.
• Peter Thiel joins the majority of Americans in thinking that Trump's Iran War was a mistake. Even so, the U.S. and Israel are reportedly planning another round of attacks after the election.
• The environmental studies for California's high-speed rail line include such absurdities as counting bumblebees "one by one" and considering the train's "acoustic impacts on waterfowl and shorebirds." That's how to spend 16 years and $15 billion building nearly nothing.
• Obvious metaphor alert!

A group dispatched by Hegseth's team in February attempted to move the historic globe, said to be used by Eisenhower during World War II.

They lifted it from its home in an Army office in the Pentagon … and dropped it. pic.twitter.com/vTjWdYXn0k

— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) October 22, 2026

The post The Swamp King appeared first on Reason Magazine.

New designation of the Land of Standing-Up Rocks, known for its historic rock spires, passed with bipartisan support

An area of towering rock spires in south-eastern Arizona known among Native Americans as the Land of Standing-Up Rocks has become the nation’s newest national park.

Legislation to create Chiricahua national park was sent to the White House and Donald Trump signed it on Tuesday. It passed Congress with bipartisan backing and is now the 64th US national park.

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© Photograph: Ron Kerbo/National Parks Service/AP

© Photograph: Ron Kerbo/National Parks Service/AP

© Photograph: Ron Kerbo/National Parks Service/AP

Experts say Russia is trying to destroy energy infrastructure before winter and US ‘appeasement and flattery’ will not achieve peace

• Europe live – latest updates

Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a clinic.

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© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Experts say Russia is trying to destroy energy infrastructure before winter and US ‘appeasement and flattery’ will not achieve peace

• Europe live – latest updates

Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a clinic.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Agency declines to reveal in which state latest measles death occurred as it delays reporting other measles deaths

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added a third measles death to its dashboard on Wednesday, but the agency would not reveal whether the death occurred in Pennsylvania or another state – which is “notable” as the agency delays reporting other measles deaths, experts say.

The CDC cited privacy laws in not sharing the name of the state, but experts say there are no privacy concerns in doing so – and this information is important for the public to have as the outbreak continues accelerating, growing by 8% in one week to 4,410 confirmed cases so far this year, nearly double last year’s count.

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© Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

© Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

© Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

One month after Washington, D.C., celebrated America's 250th anniversary, it marked a more ignominious milestone: a full year since President Donald Trump deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers to the capital.

The approximately 4,600 National Guard members have been an unavoidable presence in D.C., wandering the National Mall and downtown streets in groups of three or four, or standing idly in Metro stations chatting. Occasionally, they're tasked with picking up trash at parks. Tourists take selfies with them by the now-fenced-off Lafayette Square in front of the White House.

They're not going anywhere. The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to acquire up to 2,000 housing units to support long-term National Guard deployments. The Department of Defense has estimated that extending the mission from October 2026 through to the end of the Trump administration in January 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion.

According to the Trump administration, all of this has been necessary to transform D.C. "from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike."

Crime in D.C. is down 20 percent from 2025, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, but an August Reuters investigation found National Guard soldiers were involved in only a tiny fraction of arrests in the safer parts of the city, mostly for minor offenses such as shoplifting and turnstile jumping. Crime has been dropping nationwide, a trend that started before Trump took office and includes cities that aren't occupied by federal law enforcement and soldiers.

Even if the Guard presence has contributed to a drop in crime, it's a civil liberties nightmare. It puts untrained military in the role of policing civilians. It usurps local police departments that are ostensibly answerable to the communities they police, and it normalizes the deployment of military forces domestically—a red line for a free society.

"There's a deep irony that here we are in the capital of the free world, and our president is treating it like a police state," Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, told PBS in August. "D.C. residents have lived with our National Guard troops in our neighborhoods for about a year, despite the absence of any genuine emergency and really any reason for them to be here."

Last November, a federal court preliminarily ruled that the deployment was illegal. However, an appeals court allowed the Trump administration to keep troops deployed in D.C. while it considers the administration's appeal of that ruling.

The appeals court decision is absurd. The appellate panel is fully aware that every day the case drags on is another day that D.C. residents are being subjected to a potentially illegal military occupation, and another day that taxpayers will foot the bill for a wasteful fit of presidential hubris.

The damages are compounding. The first anniversary of Trump's deployment of National Guard soldiers to D.C. should be the last.

The post Crime Is Down in D.C., but Trump's National Guard Deployment Probably Isn't the Cause appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Some 32 government services are offline while work is carried out to address potential cybersecurity issues, a minister has said

• Tell us: have you been affected by the PHP code flaw?

The Office for National Statistics has also published a report on the gender pay gap. It says:

The gender pay gap for full-time employees has continued to decline in the UK. It was 6.8% in April 2026, down from 7.2% in April 2025. This compares with 9.4% a decade ago and 16.4% 25 years ago.

Secondly, I asked Healey whether he sees the banks as making excessive profits, which would be the coherent justification for him to increase the surcharge on bank profits – as he is expected to do in the Budget next week.

He said: “You know the banks are the engine of investment in this country. The banks are doing well at the moment and that is good to see.

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© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to lift a court order that stopped border wall construction across the Big Bend region of Texas.

The post Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Restart Big Bend Border Wall appeared first on Breitbart.

Similar withdrawals from UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain reported as concerns grow about restart of war on Iran after US midterm elections

The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia as the gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and oilfield.

Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. The state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said: “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.”

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-Ga.) lashed out at President Trump’s military operations against Iran on Wednesday, warning a further escalation could cost Republicans in the November elections.  “If Trump is dumb enough to attack Iran again before the midterms, @AbdulElSayed will win the senate seat in Michigan,” Greene wrote on social media Wednesday. “It’s…

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-Ga.) lashed out at President Trump’s military operations against Iran on Wednesday, warning a further escalation could cost Republicans in the November elections.  “If Trump is dumb enough to attack Iran again before the midterms, @AbdulElSayed will win the senate seat in Michigan,” Greene wrote on social media Wednesday. “It’s…