Republicans have funded the world's largest police state

With more money than most countries' militaries, ICE is running amok over Americans' rights

Sabrina Haake

Less than a week after Republicans passed Trump’s big brutal bill into law, national media awaits Trump’s next performative show of force. The bill signing ceremony, however, will be a tough act to follow.

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Trump signed his heinous creation into law in an overly produced, lavishly made-for-Fox-TV moment paid for by American tax dollars. On the Fourth of July, cameras zooming in, Trump raised his sharpie, perfectly choreographed to follow B2 bombers flying overhead in formation, at a cost to taxpayers of $2 million per.

Once again using the nation’s military as a political prop, Trump’s high-res production team finally turned out the spectacle he’s been craving since his military parade became an international joke. Trump got to perform his assault on America’s interests on America’s own birthday, after he forced his 950 page abomination of a bill down scared Republican throats. No democrat in either chamber voted aye.

July 4 was the artificial deadline Trump imposed for Congress to pass the bill, to guarantee that no one would have time to read it before they voted for it. Dubbed the cruelest piece of legislation in US history, Trump’s monstrosity will:

• Remove over $1 trillion from Medicaid, which will leave 12 to 14 million Americans without health care;
• Extend already unaffordable, damn-near-theft tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations that don’t need them;
• Adjust Medicaid payments forcing many rural hospitals to close their doors;
• Slash Food Stamps and food assistance for approximately 42 million Americans, including children and senior citizens; while
• Increasing the already-bloated federal deficit by $3.4 trillion, an unprecedented debt level many economists consider dangerous.

Trump and his party are spending money like drunk sailors on leave, dampening the economy with a deficit to GDP ratio that will affect interest rates, bond markets, the strength of the US dollar, and the cost of repaying the national debt owed to foreign governments, including, primarily, China.

What about the political backlash, you ask? Too clever by half, republicans delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the midterms to insulate themselves from consequences.

American Apartheid

 For those who still refuse to accept the level of racism that has now become US policy:

This is what America used to stand for:

Daylight Savings Time ends officially Sunday at 2 AM.

Tomaquag Museum's Loren Spears discusses new book by acclaimed author on Monday

‘Dr. IndigiNerd’ Lee Francis IV to share Native pop culture history at Nov. 6 URI Humanities lecture

Indigenous Imagination Workshop founder to cover pop culture ‘From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief’

James Bessette 

Pueblo of Laguna tribe member Lee Francis IV will deliver a
lecture titled “From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief: A Brief History
of Natives in Pop Culture” as part of the University of Rhode
 Island Center for the Humanities’ “Humanities and Popular
Culture/Counterculture” lecture series on Nov. 6.
(URI Photo/Courtesy Lee Francis IV)

Indigenous and Native people have played significant roles in global popular culture for more than four centuries.

In that time, images and representations of Native American and North American Indigenous Peoples have permeated the collective consciousness around the world, from early portrayals of the “Noble Savage” through the villainous “Red Devil.” But what does it look like when that identity is reclaimed?

Pueblo of Laguna tribal member Lee Francis IV, Founder and Chief Imagination Officer of the Indigenous Imagination Workshop—who is also known as Dr. IndigiNerd—will reflect on the past, present and future of Indigenous people represented in popular media during the University of Rhode Island’s Humanities and Popular Culture/Counterculture lecture series. Francis’ talk, titled “From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief: A Brief History of Natives in Pop Culture,” will be held Thursday, Nov. 6, at 5 p.m. in the Hope Room of the Robert J. Higgins ’67 Welcome Center, 45 Upper College Road on the Kingston Campus.

Why you can salvage moldy cheese but never spoiled meat

What to pitch, what to salvage

Brad Reisfeld, Colorado State University

When you open the refrigerator and find a wedge of cheese flecked with green mold, or a package of chicken that smells faintly sour, it can be tempting to gamble with your stomach rather than waste food.

But the line between harmless fermentation and dangerous spoilage is sharp. Consuming spoiled foods exposes the body to a range of microbial toxins and biochemical by-products, many of which can interfere with essential biological processes. The health effects can vary from mild gastrointestinal discomfort to severe conditions such as liver cancer.

I am a toxicologist and researcher specializing in how foreign chemicals such as those released during food spoilage affect the body. Many spoiled foods contain specific microorganisms that produce toxins. Because individual sensitivity to these chemicals varies, and the amount present in spoiled foods can also vary widely, there are no absolute guidelines on what is safe to eat. However, it’s always a good idea to know your enemies so you can take steps to avoid them.

Offshore wind’s effects on fish won’t be studied due to federal cuts

Fishermen join the list of those harmed by vindictive Trump cuts

By Anastasia E. Lennon in The New Bedford Light 

 

A research project that would have studied how New England offshore wind projects affect commercial fish species is now dead in the water. 

The canceled study, which would have employed New Bedford fishermen, is one casualty of $7.5 billion in clean-energy funding cuts in mostly Democrat-led states, announced last week by the Department of Energy.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation, a Falmouth-based scientific research nonprofit, was awarded $3.5 million by the Energy Department in 2021 to survey commercial fish species in wind farm areas before, during and after construction. The surveys, which were scheduled to begin this year, would have helped fill large information gaps on how wind farms on the Atlantic Coast could affect fished species.

Wind developers already collect this type of data (to varying degrees), but the companies largely keep the data private. The project would have published open-source data, and would have paid a handful of fishermen — most from New Bedford — to assist in the project by towing or deploying specialized survey equipment through the waters in and around the wind leases. 

Liese Siemann, a senior research biologist and the lead investigator for the project, said it’s “ironic” the federal government terminated a project that could have provided information to fishermen, a group that’s been vociferous in its concerns about offshore wind. Many local fishermen supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 election because of his opposition to the wind industry. 

“The logic of canceling this project that would answer questions [fishermen] have and support a community [the administration] wants to support kind of escapes me,” said Siemann. “We’re not promoting offshore wind; we’re collecting data about offshore wind and trying to better understand potential impacts.”

How Many Laws Will Trump Break to Make America Predominantly White Again?

His policies are driven by racism and Christian nationalism

John Feffer for Policy In Focus

The Trump administration aspires to deport a million people in its first year of office. The president has also spoken of the more ambitious goal of deporting 15-20 million undocumented people overall, even if that category probably covers only 14 million folks. The discrepancy of a couple million people shouldn’t bother Donald Trump. He’s happy to deport those with green cards, H-1B visas, and even American citizens.

Deporting a million people in a year is a heavy lift. The previous record, 409,849 people, was during the Obama administration, as part of the 1.5 million deportations he conducted in his first term. Trump, no doubt, wants to best Barack Obama in this category, since he’s determined to outshine the former president in every respect, even the dubious ones.

Despite all the high-profile seizures by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the deals to dump Venezuelans to Salvadoran prisons, and the truly crazy efforts to send people to countries they’ve never even visited like Eswatini and South Sudan, the Trump administration has managed to deport only about 350,000 people through the end of August. 

That includes the 200,000 by ICE and the rest by Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, plus some self-deportations. Another 60,000 are languishing in ICE detention centers. The government is currently monitoring about 180,000 families and individuals in its Alternatives to Detention program, which may end up becoming a Preparation for Deportation program.

Most of the people currently in detention—over 70%—have never committed any crime, which undermines the claim by the Trump administration that he’s going after the “bad hombres.”

Detention is pretty much a fast track to deportation. After all, detainees often don’t have access to lawyers. As the American Prospect reports, “ICE uses bureaucracy and location transfers to isolate their detainees from both their families and their lawyers, limiting their ability to get out of their predicaments and increasing misery and hopelessness.” One immigration lawyer told me that some of his clients have disappeared for several days in ICE detention—and these included people who were willing to self-deport.

Trump is not close to meeting his ambitious deportation goals. That’s no comfort to all the immigrants whose lives he has already upended.

MAGA Halloween: Here's some candy for you, bro

I'd love to hear Trump correctly explain quantum physics, quantum computing and AI and fusion. Then give him his prize.

Or just give him a replica prize, like the way the South Korean government just gave him a replica of their imperial crown. 

Westerly Dems collecting food tomorrow

ACLU sues McKee for blocking State House protest during his State of the State speech

Civil rights group sues over petty, vindictive - and unconstitutional - act by Dan McKee

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Nine months after progressive advocates were barred from holding a rally in the State House rotunda ahead of Gov. Dan McKee’s State of the State address, the ACLU of Rhode Island is suing the governor to ensure the area is never roped off from the public again.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, claims the governor violated protesters’ First Amendment rights when his office, without notice, reserved the rotunda just 30 minutes before their planned “People’s State of the State” rally on Jan. 14.

Advocates organized by the now-dissolved Black Lives Matter RI PAC had intended to gather in the rotunda to call on McKee to declare a public health emergency to shelter the state’s growing homeless population over the winter.

But when people started to arrive around 5 p.m., they were met by State and Capitol Police, along with stanchions cordoning off the rotunda stating the space was “reserved for the State of the State through the Department of Administration” from 4:30 to 10 p.m. 

The ACLU’s lawsuit claims protesters were threatened with arrest and told that McKee’s office had instructed police to prevent them from accessing the rotunda and upper floors of the State House.

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could unlock the next revolution in cancer treatment

Beating cancer seems closer than ever - as long as Bobby Jr. and Trump stay out of the way

Adam Grippin, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Christiano Marconi, University of Florida

The COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5 million lives globally during the pandemic could help spark the immune system to fight cancer. This is the surprising takeaway of a new study that we and our colleagues published in the journal Nature.

While developing mRNA vaccines for patients with brain tumors in 2016, our team, led by pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, discovered that mRNA can train immune systems to kill tumors – even if the mRNA is not related to cancer.

Based on this finding, we hypothesized that mRNA vaccines designed to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 might also have antitumor effects.

So we looked at clinical outcomes for more than 1,000 late-stage melanoma and lung cancer patients treated with a type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors. This treatment is a common approach doctors use to train the immune system to kill cancer. It does this by blocking a protein that tumor cells make to turn off immune cells, enabling the immune system to continue killing cancer.

Remarkably, patients who received either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were more than twice as likely to be alive after three years compared with those who didn’t receive either vaccine. Surprisingly, patients with tumors that don’t typically respond well to immunotherapy also saw very strong benefits, with nearly fivefold improvement in three-year overall survival. This link between improved survival and receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine remained strong even after we controlled for factors like disease severity and co-occurring conditions.

To understand the underlying mechanism, we turned to animal models. We found that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines act like an alarm, triggering the body’s immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells and overcome the cancer’s ability to turn off immune cells. When combined, vaccines and immune checkpoint inhibitors coordinate to unleash the full power of the immune system to kill cancer cells.

University of Florida Health pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, who led the research, explains that mRNA vaccines that are not specific to a patient’s cancer can ‘wake up the sleeping giant that is the immune system to fight cancer.’

US Sen. Whitehouse links rising insurance costs to climate change at N.C. roundtable

Homeowner insurance cancellations, non-renewals and premium hikes driven by climate change

By Christine Zhu, Rhode Island Current

Rhode Island’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse held a roundtable in Raleigh on October 14 to address climate change driving up insurance costs.

Speaking at the Walnut Creek Wetlands Center, Whitehouse joined U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross (NC-02), the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters and Partners for Environmental Justice to address concerns from local experts, community leaders and residents.

Whitehouse, who has served as the ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works since January 2025, said his home state of Rhode Island faces some of the same environmental challenges as North Carolina. Rhode Island is subject to rain bursts — sudden amounts of precipitation in a short period of time — that can flood rivers and overwhelm sewage treatment facilities. The Ocean State also has rising sea levels, coastal storms, and erosion.

“Those are familiar topics to you here in North Carolina – upland river flooding from rain bursts and coastal erosion and storms tearing away at your coastal communities,” Whitehouse said.

You Can’t Learn from History If You Cover It Up

To Trump, nothing is sacred

By Jim Hightower

Our country’s magnificent National Park System has been called “America’s greatest idea.”

These 433 treasures — along with our rich diversity of national museums and historical sites — each have their own stories to tell. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, for together they express America’s egalitarian spirit and “little-d” democratic possibilities, urging us to keep pushing for economic fairness and social justice for all.

And that’s exactly why Trump and his cabal of moneyed elites and right-wing extremists are out to purge, erase, and officially censor the parks’ historical presentations. After all, it’s hard to impose plutocratic autocracy if such tangible examples of historic truth and democratic rebellion are openly displayed!

This is an actual ad posted by ICE showing their
keen grasp of American history

Thus, as dictated by the GOP’s secretive anti-democracy clique, Project 2025, Trump’s ideological Thought Police have set themselves up as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” to sanitize and Disney-fy the telling of our people’s real history.

For example, Trump complains that parks and museums hurt America’s self-image by telling “how bad slavery was.”

Donald, that’s not an image — its reality. It’s as central to our national character as our historic commitment to equality. And the explosive conflict between ugly repression and flowering egalitarianism is ever present today.

Consider the push by Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and others in the GOP’s Christian Nationalist movement to deny the unifying principle that “all men are created equal.”

There’s not enough whitewash in the world to cover up the deep ugliness of slavery, and it’s self-destructive for the government to try. The fundamental purpose of recording our shared history is to learn from it.

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Happy Halloween

Trump runs into a snag trying to end his 10th war

Believe it or not, some cats work for a living

Working Cats: A Brief History of Human-Feline Partnerships

Rick Kelaher

Hard at work. Photo by Will Collette

From ancient grain stores to modern distilleries, cats have shared our spaces throughout history, providing pest control and companionship while shaping culture and ecology.

When the first drops of whiskey were distilled in medieval Ireland, a silent helper stood nearby. Furred, four-legged, and always ready to deal with unwelcome mice, the cat thus began its long relationship with the distilling industry.

The domestic cat, Felis catus, is a distinct species separate from its wild African ancestors. The first domestic cats evolved to become part of human settlements, inhabiting this niche as both wild, independent animals and part of the human milieu. Agricultural surpluses provided food for rodents, which, in turn, supported a population of cats.

Over time, cats became more personable and fearless, helping to eliminate animals that devoured or spoiled food, chewed on infrastructure, spread disease, and carried parasites that could sicken humans. Domestic cats provided human societies with a significant evolutionary advantage.

People also fell in love with cats. Entire cultures incorporated cats into their secular traditions, religions, and arts. Although cats became domesticated, they retained the hunting prowess of their wild forebears. The care that mother cats lavished on their kittens made them icons of maternity. Their movements in the shadows throughout the day and night linked them with the unknown and the supernatural. These associations continue to this day.

By the Middle Ages, the cat’s ability to catch rodents had made it an agricultural, domestic, and economic necessity to such a degree that its role was codified in law. In Wales, for example, if you were sold a cat that did not catch mice, you could return the feline and demand a refund of one-third of the cat’s price.

Scientists discover microplastics deep inside human bones

May compromise bone health

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

The production and use of over 400 million tons of plastic each year has polluted beaches, rivers, and even the deepest parts of the ocean, reaching depths of up to 11,000 meters. In addition to visible environmental impacts, plastic contributes to climate change. 

It is estimated that plastic production generates 1.8 billion tons of greenhouse gases per year. Scientific evidence also suggests that using plastic materials in everyday life has impacted human health.

A large number of plastic particles detach from curtains, furniture, clothing, and other plastic objects. These particles remain suspended in the air, dissolve in drinking water, adhere to food, and can be inhaled, ingested, or come into contact with people's skin. Consequently, scientists have found microplastics in blood, the brain, the placenta, breast milk, and human bones.

A study linked to a research project supported by FAPESP and published in the journal Osteoporosis International reviewed 62 scientific articles and found that microplastics have also been harming bone health in various ways. One notable example is their ability to impair the function of bone marrow stem cells by promoting the formation of osteoclasts, which are multinucleated cells that degrade tissue through a process known as bone resorption.

When sunshine became cheaper than coal

Another Trump claim about green energy turns out to be false

University of Surrey

Solar energy is now so cost-effective that, in the sunniest countries, it costs as little as £0.02 to produce one unit of power, making it cheaper than electricity generated from coal, gas or wind, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.

In a study published in Energy and Environment Materials, researchers from Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) argue that solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is now the key driver of the world's transition to clean, renewable power.

Professor Ravi Silva, co-author of the study and Director of the ATI at the University of Surrey, said:

"Even here in the UK, a country that sits 50 degrees north of the equator, solar is the cheapest option for large-scale energy generation. Globally, the total amount of solar power installed passed 1.5 terawatts in 2024 - twice as much as in 2020 and enough to power hundreds of millions of homes. Simply put, this technology is no longer a moonshot prospect but a foundational part of the resilient, low-carbon energy future that we all want to bring to reality."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Charlestown is at 42 degrees latitude meaning we get more sunlight than England.

Ten Ways You’re Being Burned by Billionaires

Don't let them do it

By Chuck Collins

I’ve spent my career highlighting the problems posed by extreme wealth. Not everyone buys it. “None of my problems exist as a result of someone else being a billionaire,” Greg B. recently wrote to me.

The problem isn’t individual billionaires, I told Greg. It’s the system of laws, rules, and regulations tipped in favor of the wealthy at the expense of working folks.

I wrote my new book, Burned by Billionaires, to help folks like Greg understand this system better. Here are 10 ways you — yes, you personally — are being burned by billionaires, pulled from my book.

1. They stick you with their tax bill. By dodging taxes in ways unavailable to ordinary workers, billionaires shift responsibility onto you to pay for everything from infrastructure to defense and veterans services.

2. They rob you of your voice. Your vote might still make a difference, but billionaires now dominate candidate selection, campaign finance, and policy priorities. The billionaires love gridlock and government shutdowns because they can block popular legislation.

3. They supercharge the housing crisis. Billionaire demand for luxury housing is driving up the cost of land and housing construction for everyone. Billionaire speculators are also buying up rental housing, single family homes, and mobile home parks to squeeze more money out of the housing shortage.

4. They inflame our divisions. The billionaires don’t want you to understand how they’re picking your pocket, so they pour millions into partisan media organizations and divisive politicians to deflect our attention. This divisive agenda drives down wages, worsens the historic racial wealth divide, and scapegoats immigrants.

5. They’re trashing your environment. While you’re recycling and walking, they’re zooming around in private jets and yachts with the carbon emissions of small countries.

6. They’re making you sick. Billionaire-backed private equity funds are buying up hospitals and drug companies to squeeze more out of health care consumers. Health outcomes in societies with extreme disparities in wealth are worse for everyone, even the rich, than societies with less inequality.

Boo!

Donald sends a new, coded message to his followers. Wonder what it means?

 

Resist!

Spanish researchers come up with "smarter Mediterranean diet"

A lighter Mediterranean diet plus exercise could be the most delicious way to beat type 2 diabetes.

Universidad de Navarra

Eating a Mediterranean-style diet with fewer calories, adding moderate physical activity, and receiving professional guidance for weight management can lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 31%. That is the key finding of PREDIMED-Plus, a large clinical trial led in Spain by the University of Navarra together with more than 200 researchers from 22 universities, hospitals, and research institutes. The project was carried out in over 100 primary care centers within Spain's National Health System.

Launched in 2013 after the University of Navarra received an Advanced Grant of over €2 million from the European Research Council (ERC), PREDIMED-Plus is the largest nutrition trial ever conducted in Europe. Between 2014 and 2016, additional institutions joined the effort, bringing total funding above 15 million euros. Most of the support came from the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) and the Center for Biomedical Research Network (CIBER), through its divisions on Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBEROBN), Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), and Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases (CIBERDEM).

The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, followed 4,746 adults between the ages of 55 and 75 who were overweight or obese and had metabolic syndrome but no prior history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Over six years, researchers compared two groups. One group adopted a calorie-reduced Mediterranean diet (about 600 fewer kilocalories per day), engaged in moderate exercise such as brisk walking and strength and balance training, and received professional counseling. The other group continued a traditional Mediterranean diet without calorie limits or exercise advice.

The results revealed that the participants who followed the calorie-reduced diet and exercise plan not only reduced their diabetes risk but also lost more weight and trimmed more from their waistlines. On average, they lost 3.3 kg and 3.6 cm from their waist, compared to 0.6 kg and 0.3 cm in the control group. This translated to preventing about three new cases of type 2 diabetes for every 100 participants -- a meaningful benefit for public health.

Destroying the East Wing of the White House destroys women's history

Irreparable damage, irreplaceable loss

This story was originally reported by Errin Haines and Amanda Becker of The 19th. Meet Errin and Amanda and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Among the offices housed in the East Wing is the Office of the First Lady, first professionalized by Eleanor Roosevelt during her husband’s administration. Roosevelt used the East Wing for official functions, as a base of operations for her activism and as a space for interacting with groups representing the American people. (Bettman archives/Getty Images)

When bulldozers began to tear down the East Wing of the White House to clear the way for Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom, historians raised alarms that important American history was being buried in the rubble, including chapters about previous first ladies and their roles uplifting women going back nearly a century.

Among the offices housed in the East Wing is the Office of the First Lady, first professionalized by Eleanor Roosevelt during her husband’s administration. Roosevelt used the East Wing for official functions, as a base of operations for her activism and as a space for interacting with groups representing the American people, from the Girl Scouts to the Women’s Trade Union League. 

Betty Ford argued to increase pay for her staff in the East Wing. Rosalynn Carter became the first First Lady to keep her own office there, in 1977. It was also in the East Wing that Laura Bush launched her literacy efforts, and where Michelle Obama oversaw her “Let’s Move” campaign.

Katherine A.S. Sibley, a professor of history at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said that before Carter, first ladies had offices in the presidential residence, often in their bedrooms. Roosevelt establishing a staff and presence in the East Wing — and subsequent first ladies having dedicated staff and their own offices there — were acknowledgements of the significant role presidential spouses play on key initiatives.

Surprisingly aggressive Federal Trade Commission wins more than a billion in penalties against Amazon

The FTC Bucks the MAGA Anti-Regulatory Crusade

By Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First for the Dirt Diggers Digest

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in limbo. The Environmental Protection Agency has been turned into a fossil fuel cheerleader. The Securities and Exchange Commission has drastically scaled back its enforcement activity. The Federal Communications Commission is focused on using its powers to attack perceived enemies of the Trump Administration.

Across the federal bureaucracy, agencies seem to be reshaping themselves in accordance with Donald Trump’s belief that regulation of business is evil. And now with the shutdown, those agencies are barely operating at all.

Yet there is one agency that bucked the trend and continued its mission of exercising oversight of corporate behavior: the Federal Trade Commission. Until the shutdown caused it, too, to suspend operations, the FTC has been engaged in conventional and even aggressive enforcement activity.

Most notably, the FTC recently announced the resolution of a case against Amazon.com for using deceptive methods to enroll consumers in its Prime service and then making it difficult for them to unsubscribe. As part of the resolution, Amazon was required to pay a civil penalty of $1 billion and provide $1.5 billion in refunds while also changing its practices.

How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force

An inside look at Trump's unfettered and unaccountable secret police

By J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam for ProPublica

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system.

Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way to confirm whether they were immigration agents or imposters. In six of the calls to Santa Ana police, residents described what they were seeing as kidnappings.

“He’s bleeding,” one caller said about a person he saw yanked from a car wash lot and beaten. “They dumped him into a white van. It doesn’t say ICE.”

One woman’s voice shook as she asked, “What kind of police go around without license plates?”

And then this from another: “Should we just run from them?”

During a tense public meeting days later, Mayor Valerie Amezcua and the City Council asked their police chief whether there was anything they could do to rein in the federal agents — even if only to ban the use of masks. The answer was a resounding no. 

Plus, filing complaints with the Department of Homeland Security was likely to go nowhere because the office that once handled them had been dismantled. There was little chance of holding individual agents accountable for alleged abuses because, among other hurdles, there was no way to reliably learn their identities.

Since then, Amezcua, 58, said she has reluctantly accepted the reality: There are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. Santa Ana has proven to be a template for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in Chicago and elsewhere. “It’s almost like he tries it out in this county and says, ‘It worked there, so now let me send them there,’” Amezcua said.

Current and former national security officials share the mayor’s concerns. They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world’s most repressive regimes. ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force. 

The transformation, the officials say, unfolded rapidly and in plain sight. Trump’s DHS appointees swiftly dismantled civil rights guardrails, encouraged agents to wear masks, threatened groups and state governments that stood in their way, and then made so many arrests that the influx overwhelmed lawyers trying to defend immigrants taken out of state or out of the country.

And although they are reluctant to predict the future, the current and former officials worry that this force assembled from federal agents across the country could eventually be turned against any groups the administration labels a threat.

Could Charlestown be next?

Deep

View from atop the wind turbines off Block Island

URI senior lives to tell the tale

Nicholas Phillips 

On clear days, standing on the bluffs of Block Island, Rhode Island, wind turbines jut out of the blue-green ocean. They sit perfectly still in the swaying of the ocean current.

Sitting 15 nautical miles offshore, the wind is a constant companion for the turbines that generate renewable energy for thousands of homes. Anyone who’s spent time on the open water knows the wind is always there, waiting.

Wind energy has its supporters and detractors. Some see the construction of offshore projects as a disruption to marine habitats and navigational routes. Others see it as a necessary step toward a sustainable energy future.

Samantha Kipper, a senior at the University of Rhode Island in the College of Engineering, views the turbines through a different prism.

URI senior Sam Kipper says one of her favorite memories was on top of one of the wind turbines.

Kipper grew up near the ocean surfing the waters of the Pacific near Huntington Beach, California—a place she describes as very energy focused. There the focus was less on sustainable energy and more on fossil fuels. Her middle school mascot was the Oilers, and in high school it was the Chargers.

“When you drive around, you see oil rigs and oil drills still there,” says Kipper. “I think I related to energy in that way so when deciding on what I wanted to study, I thought renewable energy seemed like the way to go.”

This past summer, Kipper found herself in a position few students, and even fewer women, ever do; standing inside one of those turbines she once viewed from shore not once, but twice—up close and personal.

URI senior Sam Kipper was able to go into the Block Island Wind Farm turbines not once but twice.

Her voyage to the wind farm was part of a 10-week internship she completed with Ørsted, the Danish energy firm. 

Kipper secured her internship thanks in part to Chris Baxter, the department chair for civil and environmental engineering, and URI graduate Julie-Ann Knight ’17. Kipper does research for Baxter—where a lot of his work focuses on renewable energy. Kipper also says Knight spoke to her freshman ocean engineering class. The two stayed in touch ever since.

Over the course of 10 weeks, Kipper not only studied the science behind offshore wind but experienced it firsthand. She interned in the offshore asset management department, focusing on offshore projects. 

Oh, the horror!

Toxic “forever chemicals” found in 95% of beers tested in the U.S.

American Chemical Society

Infamous for their environmental persistence and potential links to health conditions, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called forever chemicals, are being discovered in unexpected places, including beer. 

Researchers publishing in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology tested beers brewed in different areas around the U.S. for these substances. They found that beers produced in parts of the country with known PFAS-contaminated water sources showed the highest levels of forever chemicals.

"As an occasional beer drinker myself, I wondered whether PFAS in water supplies was making its way into our pints," says research lead Jennifer Hoponick Redmon. "I hope these findings inspire water treatment strategies and policies that help reduce the likelihood of PFAS in future pours."

PFAS are human-made chemicals produced for their water-, oil- and stain-repellent properties. They have been found in surface water, groundwater and municipal water supplies across the U.S. and the world. Although breweries typically have water filtration and treatment systems, they are not designed to remove PFAS. 

By modifying a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) testing method for analyzing levels of PFAS in drinking water, Hoponick Redmon and colleagues tested 23 beers. The test subjects were produced by U.S. brewers in areas with documented water system contamination, plus popular domestic and international beers from larger companies with unknown water sources.

US non-profits, especially health and hunger related, hammered by Trump-Musk cuts

1 in 3 US nonprofits that serve communities lost government funding in early 2025

Lewis Faulk, American University and Mirae Kim, George Mason University

About one-third of U.S. nonprofit service providers experienced a disruption in their government funding in the first half of 2025.

That’s what we found when we teamed up with Urban Institute researchers to collect nationally representative survey data from 2,737 nonprofits across the country.

These organizations run food pantries, deliver job training and offer mental health services. They provide independent living assistance, disaster relief and emergency shelter, among other services.

Our team found that 21% lost a grant or contract, 27% faced delays or funding freezes and 6% were hit with stop-work orders. Some of the nonprofits had experienced more than one of these funding problems, which affected nonprofits of all kinds. But they were especially disruptive to larger ones that employ more people and provide key services, such as large social service agencies, food banks and organizations serving people enrolled in Medicaid.

EDITOR'S NOTE: One of the most obscene cuts came in the form of halting shipments of food shipments to food banks and anti-hunger programs. ProPublica tallied the loss: Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived. — ProPublica

Trump adds another problem to the shortage of doctors

How Trump's new foreign worker visa fees might worsen doctor shortages

Patrick Aguilar, Washington University in St. Louis

He probably had a foreign doctor fix it without
leaving a trace

There are almost 1.1 million licensed physicians in the United States. That may sound like a lot, but the country has struggled for decades to train enough physicians to meet its needs – and, in particular, to provide care in rural and underserved communities.

Foreign-born physicians have long filled that gap, reducing the overall national shortage and signing up to practice in often overlooked regions and specialties. Today, 1 in 5 doctors licensed to practice in the U.S. were born and trained in another country.

But the ability of physicians from other countries to obtain work in the U.S. may be threatened by the Trump administration’s aims of limiting foreign workers. In September, Trump issued a proclamation requiring employers sponsoring foreign-born workers through a type of work visa called an H-1B to pay a fee of US$100,000 to the government. The White House has signaled doctors may be exempt but has not clarified its position.

As a physician and professor who studies the intersection of business and medicine, I believe increasing restrictions on H-1B visas for physicians may exacerbate the physician shortage. To grasp why that is, it’s important to understand how foreign-trained doctors became such an integral part of U.S. health care – and the role they play today.