United States | News & Politics

The Trump administration denies Minnesota officials access to evidence in nurse’s shooting. BCA vows thorough investigation despite lack of key information. Governor demands real probe.

A potentially groundbreaking vaccine for seasonal flu would not be getting approval from regulators. In fact, it wasn’t even getting formal consideration, Moderna announced in a Tuesday press release, because officials were refusing to accept the application.

The initiative, which the administration wants to roll out with a splashy White House event, has yet to be formally announced – and it remains unclear which companies have agreed to the compact or been invited to participate.

John Paulson, who is worth an estimated $4 billion, previously spoke out against offshoring American manufacturing jobs

AI data center venture signs $14.1M deal for water supply in PA town. Controversy over energy needs and water consumption. Major impact on communities.

https://archive.ph/9Wm6h

Many social media posts by Tesla CEO on his platform are indiscernible from those of white supremacists, say experts

It was sunny and warm for the end of November on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in northern Montana. Joseph Eagleman was standing on a grassy hill looking at a 20-panel solar array in the backyard of a Chippewa Cree elder.

“This is no way for our kids to live,” said one gun control advocate.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station.

Ofelia Torres, 16, spotlighted her dad Ruben’s illegal detention last fall during Trump’s crackdown in Chicago

LONDON — Two of the world’s biggest trading blocs are cautiously eyeing closer ties to short-circuit Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The Department of Homeland Security’s HART system utilizes AI to identify facial features, fingerprints, voice patterns, and possible DNA. Those for HART included AI in its system citing its ability to share biometric data across government agencies. Those against HART utilizing AI worry the system’s accuracy will be decreased all the while accessing sensitive data. How can HART’s AI be further regulated to decrease the misidentifications that have already occurred?

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — Opening statements are expected Monday in the trial of a man whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school in September 2024.

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that more than 1,000 immigration agents have left Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its immigration enforcement surge.

“​An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down,” wrote the New Republic’s editorial director.

Feb. 13, 2026

https://archive.ph/38vaz

“I asked for an attorney probably a hundred times and was never given one,” Saari said. “I was never told why I was being arrested.”

Federal officials initially claimed a cartel drone infiltrated U.S. airspace in bizarre incident

Feb. 13, 2026

Noam Chomsky, described this ethos: “The cool observers – meaning us smart guys – it’s our task to impose necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications to keep these poor simpletons on course.”

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01743628.pdf

Feds could be in your group chat

“President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda has supercharged opposition in cities where he has deployed federal agents to conduct raids, and communities in states including New York and Missouri are already working to block the next step the Department of Homeland Security plans to take in its push for mass deportations: acquiring massive warehouses across the country to use as immigrant detention centers.

Virginia Supreme Court rules U.S. Marine’s adoption of an Afghan war orphan will stand The decision most likely ends a bitter, yearslong legal battle over the fate of the girl, whose adoption over the objections of her relatives was criticized by judges in a scathing dissent.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A judge sentenced an 18-year-old who acknowledged killing five people in a North Carolina mass shooting to life in prison without parole Friday, rejecting arguments that he deserved the chance for release decades from now.

This past year, official social media accounts from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House, and other government agencies have adopted a distinct voice online. The posts look like memes, utilizing dramatic AI-generated art, general patriotic slogans, and cinematic language about “defending the homeland” and shaping America’s future.

The agency, which regulates U.S. passports, began issuing cease and desist orders to not-for-profit libraries in late fall, informing them they were no longer authorized to participate in the Passport Acceptance Facility program as of Friday.

https://archive.ph/lkUTc

Polarization in the U.S. didn’t rise gradually. A new machine-learning study shows it surged after 2008- but why?

Documents released Thursday offer the most complete picture to date of the Trump administration’s controversial and costly plan to overhaul immigrant detention using industrial buildings.

On January 8th, UCS released its second recent report on the intersection of extreme weather, climate change, and the electric grid. *Power After the Storm builds off the previously released Keeping Everyone’s Lights On*, taking a closer look at the extreme weather events that have caused the most serious power outages over the past decade across the central United States and how climate change is expected to exacerbate extreme weather risks to the power system. Unfortunately, with heat-trapping emissions continuing to increase both globally and domestically, we must accept that responsibly planning and investing in electric infrastructure cannot just focus on reducing emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. It must also prioritize investments that prepare the electric system for the impacts of climate change that are now unavoidable, including more frequent and severe extreme weather events that risk widespread, long-duration power outages.

Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/gWLDS

Senate Democrats refused to move ahead with a spending bill needed to keep the Department of Homeland Security running because it lacked limits they have demanded on federal immigration agents.

Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California, was removed Wednesday from President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission following a contentious hearing on antisemitism for what she claimed were efforts to “force” commissioners to affirm Zionism.

Two things:

The point is that [the global authoritarian movement] will exist no matter what happens to Trump. They command vast economic resources; they run the governments in many countries where the government never changes; they have deep tentacles into the U.S. political system and many of its key players are from the U.S. Trump didn’t create this movement precisely. But his role in global politics over the last decade solidified it as a self-conscious group and congealed it together. Any movement of civic democratic revival in the U.S. will be menaced by its continued existence. Now is the time to think about how a revived and revitalized civic democratic movement in the U.S. could combat it and avoid being destroyed by it.

Across the Twin Cities, a cadre of suburban sports moms have mobilized to support immigrant families.

I’ll note that in other parts of the country, local utilities have simply refused to keep high-cost coal-burning power plants running for no reason beyond Trump’s need to satisfy people who bribed him.

Ro Khanna, the US congressman, publicly revealed the names of six men whose identities were redacted from the Jeffrey Epstein files, including Leslie Wexner, a billionaire retail magnate, whom the FBI appeared to have labeled as a co-conspirator.

The National Governors Association (NGA) has canceled its annual White House meeting after President Trump only invited Republican governors to the gathering.

Feb. 2, 2026

The rejection was a remarkable rebuke, suggesting that ordinary citizens did not believe that the lawmakers had committed any crimes.

Isn’t Stone Wall’s whole thing about being the start of LGBT Pride?

US Sen. Bernie Sanders is headed to LA to support a 5% tax on California billionaires to support the state’s healthcare system.

As early as 2021, government officials were alerted to the presence of potentially dangerous chemicals known as PFAS in pants used by wildland firefighters, according to emails obtained by ProPublica.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio may be intentionally misleading Trump on Cuba policy to push for regime change, risking the lives of millions. Is Rubio putting his own agenda above diplomacy and the well-being of the Cuban people?

Ocasio-Cortez said the precedent set by the Gaza genocide has endangered civilians across the globe.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights after being called to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee.

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski concedes NJ-11 Democratic primary to Analilia Mejía. AIPAC’s dark money influence highlighted in race.

The multicolored flag was quietly taken down recently from a flagpole at the National Park Service-run site

When U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi declared that she would seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione — the first capital prosecution announced during Donald Trump’s second term — legal experts immediately raised the alarm. The decision was more propaganda than judicial process, with Bondi broadcasting the news in a press release and Instagram post before Mangione was even indicted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under questioning from Democrats Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged that he had met with Jeffrey Epstein twice after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child, reversing Lutnick’s previous claim that he had cut ties with the late financier after 2005.

“Congress must not accept this unjustifiable, $10.3 billion giveaway,” said the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, who is leading the repeal effort.

“Employees are going absolutely apeshit in internal Slack about how completely awful it was.”

One critic blasted the impending move as “an obvious example of what happens when a corrupt administration and fossil fuel interests are allowed to run amok.”