Financial edge

This is how close American households are to the financial edge

By Stephan Bisaha

Affordability has been a politically potent word, but an ill-defined measure of financial pain, often used as a reference to inflated prices.

But new research from the Brookings Institution released Wednesday describes affordability by comparing the rising costs of essentials against family incomes. By that measure, the report found, in 2024 45.5% of U.S. households did not earn enough to cover their necessities.

The report concluded that a mere $1,000 hike in the annual cost of living would leave another 3 million households unable to make ends meet.

That precarity is partly due to the gap between inflation and wages. In 2024, national wages saw just a small 1.3% bump, well below the rate of inflation of 2.9% that year, according to the Census Bureau.

"My main takeaway is that when we talk about affordability, we've been focusing on inflation. But there's the income side of the story that we often do not talk about," said Andre Perry, the director of Brookings' Center for Community Uplift.

For the new report, the Brookings researchers gathered household income data for every county in the U.S. and compared those incomes with the estimated costs of necessities like food and transportation in those places.

Households across the country are not earning enough

Housing, healthcare and childcare are especially large chunks of household budgets that families have little control over, said Hannah Stephens, a senior research assistant at the center. "In order to actually solve affordability, we have to deal with these larger, most structural costs that are harming households," she said.

For some families, closing that gap between essentials and income has meant skipped meals, increased debt and delayed medical care, the report found.

Those decisions are playing out across the country, though the data showed some divides across states and racial groups. According to the paper, in 2024, more than 50% of families in New York state could not manage on their incomes. And while households in Washington, D.C., outperformed the national average, with over 60% able to afford necessities, the city's Black residents were significantly worse off, more than 20 percentage points behind the district's baseline. At the same time, Hispanic households did better than the city as a whole, at 3 percentage points higher than the baseline.

There was a brief moment of relief from pandemic stimulus checks

This challenge is longstanding: More than 40% of households were not able to afford what they needed almost every year from 2014 to 2024, according to the report, except for in 2021 and 2022. During those years, Americans' bank accounts were boosted by federal stimulus checks and other forms of government aid meant to help with the COVID-19 pandemic recovery.

Yet the economic health of households relapsed in 2022, when inflation spiked and those federal assistance programs began to expire, shrinking the social safety net at the same time millions of families were moving closer to the edge.

Although the report cites an extra $1,000 in annual expenses as a tipping point many households cannot afford, it does not examine data from 2026, when new financial pressures may have already pushed more families past that point. Gas prices have risen 50% since the war against Iran started at the end of February. Overall, the Consumer Price Index was up 3.8% in April year-over-year — well above the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

A survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, also released Wednesday, found that food insecurity in the U.S. has reached levels not seen since 2020, in the depths of the pandemic. The agency polls people on whether they are relying on food banks or government assistance for their groceries — or are skipping meals.

Many families did receive an extra tailwind this year after Republican lawmakers' signature tax and spending bill led to bigger tax refunds. That's part of what's kept American consumers spending, according to the Bank of America Institute. Excluding spending on gas, year-over-year spending in April was up 4%.

Wages are rising much faster for families already making more

That report also found that incomes have grown quickly between 2025 and 2026 — but for higher-income families. Those households saw pay rise 6% this April compared to a year earlier. But the boost for lower earners was just 1.5%. Economists have been using the term "K-shaped economy" to describe unequal growth, where upper-income households increasingly earn and spend more, while lower-income families earn and spend less.

The Brookings affordability report found nearly 38 million households would be able to get by if workers' wages rose by $10 per hour. But that's a tall order in a nation where the federal minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009.

"It's dramatic, in the sense that we're not doing that," Perry said. "But can we do it? Yes."

Why isn't this a headline????

Iran targets US military base as nations trade fresh round of attacks

Story by Jack Davis

The sounds of war drowned out negotiations on Thursday as the United States and Iran traded military strikes.

The exchange ended Thursday with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sending a ballistic missile at what it called “the U.S. air base identified as the source of the attack,” according to NBC News. It said the attack was in response to “blatant violation” of the ceasefire by the U.S.

Iran did not offer details, but Kuwait said its air defenses responded to “hostile missile and drone threats” and it was intercepting attacks.

Kuwait has an air base that has previously been targeted by Iran and its allies.

U.S. Central Command said on X that “Iran launched a ballistic missile toward Kuwait that was successfully intercepted by Kuwaiti forces.”

“This egregious ceasefire violation by the Iranian regime occurred hours after Iranian forces launched five one-way attack drones that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz. All drones were successfully intercepted by U.S. forces which also prevented a sixth drone launch from an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas,” Central Command said.

The Wall Street Journal reported that drones were fired at U.S. and commercial ships. U.S. F/A-18, F-16 and F-35 jet fighters shot down the drones, then the F/A-18s destroyed a ground control unit, preventing further attacks.

Iran’s version of the incident was slightly different.

“Four vessels attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz and enter the Persian Gulf without coordination with the security forces,” Iran posted on Telegram, according to The Times of Israel.

“They were warned, but after they ignored the warning, warning shots were fired at them, forcing them to return,” Iran said.

The attacks came as President Donald Trump threw cold water on hopes for an imminent deal to end the fighting.

"So far they haven't gotten there. We're not satisfied with it, but we will be, we will be. Either that or we'll have to just finish the job," Trump said, according to Fox News.

"But their navy has gone, as I've said a thousand times, their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Everything's gone and they're negotiating on fumes. But we'll see what happens. Maybe we have to go back and finish it. Maybe we don't," he said.

"They thought they were going to outwait me, you know, ‘We'll outwait him, he's got the midterms.’ I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms," Trump said, referring to Tuesday night victories by candidates he endorsed in Republican primary races.

"Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for us," Trump said.

Nuts....

Former CIA officer charged with stealing millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars from government

By Holmes Lybrand, Zachary Cohen

A former CIA officer in Virginia has been charged with stealing tens of millions of dollars in gold bars and foreign currency from the very agency he worked for, according to an FBI affidavit and a source familiar with the matter.

David Rush was arrested last week in Virginia on one charge of theft of public money. He has not yet entered a plea and remains behind bars pending a detention hearing in the case.

The FBI alleges Rush became a senior executive government employee with top-secret clearance by lying repeatedly on applications about his military service and education, falsely saying he was a Navy pilot and had advanced degrees.

Court documents, however, don’t clarify why the CIA failed to detect Rush’s false claims before hiring and promoting him. He worked for the agency for 17 years, according to an FBI affidavit, and his claims were easily dispelled by investigators.

CNN has attempted to reach an attorney for Rush for comment.

After leaving the military and joining the government, Rush falsely “claimed 744 hours of Military Leave on his official timesheet” since being honorably discharged in 2015, taking in roughly $77,000 in fraudulent compensation, the FBI affidavit claims.

Late last year, Rush asked for “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses,” according to the FBI affidavit.

Two days before his arrest, the FBI searched Rush’s home, finding over 300 gold bars worth approximately $40 million along with $2 million in cash and “35 luxury watches, many of which were Rolex brand,” the affidavit says.

The remainder of the funds Rush allegedly stole have not yet been recovered.

Rush applied three separate times to work for the government and eventually was hired in 2009 and later promoted after lying about his time in the US Navy, falsely claiming he was a pilot, as well as falsely claiming he had bachelor’s and master’s degrees, the affidavit says.

The Navy told investigators Rush worked in part as an information systems technician during his service and the universities Rush claimed to have degrees from said they had no record of him.

Prosecutors alleged that Rush also falsely stated “he was the current Director of Test for a 145-person, 18-aircraft joint Army/Navy weapons test organization.”

In 2018, as part of his application for the senior executive service level, Rush also falsely claimed “he had an eleven-year tenure as a Thesis/Dissertation advisor at the Air Force Institute of Technology,” according to the affidavit.

He no longer works for the CIA.

In statements to CNN, the FBI and CIA said the person — who has now been identified as a CIA employee — was arrested on May 19.

“After a CIA internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the FBI for a law enforcement investigation. The FBI is working closely with our partners at the CIA and the Department of Justice as we continue to investigate this matter fully. We are committed to following the facts, ensuring accountability, and pursuing justice in accordance with the law,” the FBI statement said.

What happens when there is bribery....

The last ‘little crappy ship’: What’s the future for the US Navy’s troubled LCS?

By Brad Lendon

The US Navy commissioned the last of its 35 littoral combat ships, the USS Cleveland, earlier this month at a pier in its namesake Ohio city.

“Steel. Strength. Power,” acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao posted on social media to mark the occasion.

Critics of the littoral combat ship (LCS) program had some other descriptions.

“Easy meat,” said one.

“An experiment that didn’t work,” said another.

And an expensive one. The price of the program is pegged at $60 billion, but a 2023 report from the investigative journalism site ProPublica said the eventual cost could top $100 billion.

“One of the worst boondoggles in the military’s long history of buying overpriced and underperforming weapons systems,” the ProPublica report said.

The LCS are at what the Navy calls the “low-end” of its surface ship fleet. They’re smaller than its guided-missile destroyers, carry fewer crew, and have less firepower and defenses, but they’re faster and able to operate in more shallow waters.

But after the ships have been plagued by a range of mechanical failures and mishaps since the first one was commissioned in 2008, they’ve earned a derisive interpretation of the LCS acronym, “little crappy ships.”

After the Cleveland entered the fleet last weekend on the shores of Lake Erie, the big question became – what now for the LCS?

How we got here

The LCS had its origins around the turn of the century, as naval planners looked for a smaller platform to work in coastal environments, where conditions might make larger warships like destroyers vulnerable, according to a 2017 Navy report.

The service was also facing the retirement of older, larger ships and was looking for ways to maintain its fleet size with smaller surface combatants that could be built more quickly and cheaply than bigger vessels, the report said.

Then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark decided to go with the LCS, a warship unlike anything the Navy had acquired before.

And that may have been part of the problem.

Critics argued “Admiral Clark first decided he needed a ship and only then turned to figuring out what the ship would do,” a 2014 report by then Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Work says.

In that report, written to explain the origins and complications of the LCS program, Work said the Navy got the shipped it asked for – “and in some key aspects a better ship than expected.”

But he acknowledged the ship’s development was “marked by constant change” that obscured its role and left it ripe for criticism.

The Navy acknowledged it was trying something different with the LCS.

“The LCS program marked a significant shift in how the Navy approaches shipbuilding and fleet modernization emphasizing flexibility, speed, and cost-effective construction,” a Navy fact sheet says, adding that the ships were to be rapidly reconfigured as missions – mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare or surface warfare – changed.

But the service didn’t settle on a single design, instead building two variants, the monohulled, steel-constructed Freedom class – like USS Cleveland – and the trimaran, aluminum-hulled Independence class.

A Navy fact sheet says it was expected there would be only one design chosen between plans submitted by builders Lockheed Martin and Austal USA, but two variants were chosen after competition between the two yielded “a highly efficient” shipbuilding process.

But two variants complicate logistics and supply chains, critics say.

The Independence class is the bigger of the two, 422 feet long and 104 feet wide, compared with 388 feet long and 58 feet wide for the Freedom class. The latter has the bigger displacement, at 3,450 metric tons to 3,200.

Neither uses propellor propulsion or rudders; instead, gas turbines power high-speed water jets. The design allows the LCS to operate in shallower coastal waters and avoid getting tangled in wires or cables, like those that might tether mines.

An LCS commander once touted the ships as “a military jet ski with a flight deck and a gun.”

In 2008, the first monohulled LCS, USS Freedom, was commissioned. In 2010, the first trimaran, USS Independence, followed.

Problems pile up

The LCS was envisioned as a key component of US naval power in areas dominating current headlines, like the Persian Gulf, where the US and Israel are at war with Iran, and the South China Sea, where the US and its allies are defending freedom of navigation.

Early proponents of the ship called it a “streetfighter,” according to the Navy report, speedy and able to combat small-boat swarms, but with the versatility to hunt mines like those Iran is reported to have laid in the Strait of Hormuz.

But problems began to mount. In January 2016, USS Fort Worth suffered damage to its propulsion system in Singapore. Though the problem was later found to be caused by operator error, the then-4-year-old ship was out of action for eight months.

And the incident was one of four mechanical problems with the LCS fleet in a year, staining the reputation of the ships’ reliability.

As the LCS problems materialized, Navy leaders thought money budgeted for the program could be better spent elsewhere.

In 2021, it began decommissioning the oldest of the ships – totaling seven to date – including the USS Sioux City, which was decommissioned in 2023 after spending only five years in a fleet where ships are expected to last 25 years.

An eighth, USS Fort Worth, is expected to be retired in July, but Congress blocked plans to decommission even more, citing the service’s need for ships and a wish to protect taxpayer investments of billions of dollars.

So, the Navy is forging ahead trying to make the best of ships its leaders didn’t want just a few years ago.

The 2026 Navy shipbuilding plan released earlier this month calls the LCS “an essential low-end fleet capability … capable of complicating adversary decisions,” saying it can be an effective mine countermeasures platform and armed with the Naval Strike Missile for surface warfare action.

“The strategy for LCS is a transition from acquisition to sustainment and modernization to keep these ships relevant, combat credible, and reliable through their service lives,” the plan says.

Analysts are skeptical.

“What remains to be seen is how useful they would actually be in a combat scenario, as they have never been in one,” Emma Salisbury, a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program, told CNN.

She said she’s seen no evidence that, in the current war with Iran, the three LCS deployed to the Middle East for minesweeping duties have done the job. When asked by CNN, US Central Command said it could not comment on what role the LCS have playing in the conflict.

When US Central Command announced in April it was beginning to set the conditions for mine clearing in the Strait of Hormuz, it was not LCS but destroyers that were the first to go through the waterway.

Since the war began, at least two of the three LCS assigned to the gulf for minesweeping have been spotted as far away as Malaysia and Singapore.

Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, told CNN the LCS lacks enough anti-aircraft defenses for any real war-time role in contested waters.

Though the Navy said in 2025 it had begun upgrading LCS defenses to counter drones, Schuster is unconvinced.

“They are easy meat to a cruise missile, drone or aviation platform,” he said.

“They are all but helpless in any kind of threat scenario. Even anti-pirate patrols are too dangerous in areas where there is a hostile air, drone, missile or swarm threat,” he said.

The LCS is “an experiment that didn’t work as advertised, so the US Navy does its best to use the ships for what it can,” Salisbury added.

Both Salisbury and Schuster see the LCS as primarily stopgaps for the Navy, likely to give way to a new generation of frigates that was announced last December.

Those ships, known for now as the FF (X), will be based on the Coast Guard’s Legend-class national security cutters. They’ll be bigger than the LCS, displacing 4,750 tons, according to a Navy document presented at a naval symposium in January reported by Naval News.

A Navy announcement of the new frigate from December 2025 said the service hopes to have the first hull in the water by 2028. The Navy could eventually field 50 to 65 of the new frigates, according to Naval News.

Schuster doesn’t see a bright or long future for the LCS fleet.

“They will be kept until the new (frigates) enter service in 3-4 years … Then they’ll be quietly retired one or two at a time.”

Do you think this will help....

Israeli PM Netanyahu says he directed the military to take over 70% of Gaza

By Dana Karni and Tal Shalev

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had directed Israel’s military to take over 70% of Gaza’s territory.

During an interview at a conference in the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu said that Israel is “tightening” its grip on Hamas. “We are now in 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip. We were at 50%, we moved to 60%,” he said. “My directive is to move to – take it step by step – first of all 70. Let’s start with that.” As Netanyahu spoke, the audience called for him to take over all of Gaza’s territory.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued maps to international aid groups in late-April which already showed the military already controlling approximately 64% of Gaza.

The seizure of more of Gaza would force approximately 2 million Palestinians into a shrinking fraction of the coastal enclave’s shattered territory.

Under the October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces withdrew to a demarcation line known as the “yellow line” which encompassed roughly 53% of Gaza.

On Tuesday, Hamas accused Israel of moving the line, saying this “constitutes an explicit and ongoing undermining of the ceasefire agreement, a serious violation of its provisions, and an exposed attempt to impose new facts on the ground by force, with the aim of entrenching military control over the Strip and undermining any real chance of stabilizing the situation or making de-escalation efforts succeed.”

So... When they say "weaponize department of justice" this is what they mean..

Justice Department launches a criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Paula Reid, Kara Scannell

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president – one alleging he sexually abused Carroll in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, and a second for defaming her when in 2019 he repeatedly denied the assault, said she wasn’t his type and claimed she made it up to boost sales of a book.

Prosecutors’ theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement by Carroll, 82, that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some legal fees and expenses.

Carroll’s team declined to comment for this story. Attempts to reach Hoffman on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The probe is the latest move in the department’s ceaseless, and somewhat strained, efforts to meet Trump’s demands to target his long-standing personal foes.

Under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the department has pushed to speed up Trump’s campaign of retribution. But the cases he’s brought since taking the reins of the department in April have been heavily criticized and are likely to face challenges in court over allegations of politicization.

But Blanche has been recused from this matter because he worked as one of Trump’s personal attorneys on the Carroll appeals, according to a source familiar with the matter. Blanche has not attended meetings or been involved in discussions about the investigations, and the investigation is being overseen by other officials in the deputy attorney general’s office.

Senior leaders at the Justice Department referred the investigation to federal prosecutors in Chicago, according to two sources familiar with the matter. While Carroll’s deposition took place in New York, one of the individuals who helped cover some of Carroll’s legal fees, Hoffman, has a nonprofit based in Chicago.

Hoffman’s support of the case caught Trump’s attorneys off guard when it came to light on the eve of trial.

In a 2022 videotaped deposition, Carroll told then-Trump attorney Alina Habba that no one else was paying for her legal fees. But two weeks before the trial Carroll’s attorneys informed the judge and Trump’s lawyers that they secured funding from Hoffman’s nonprofit.

Carroll’s lawyers said she never met nor had conversations with anyone associated with the nonprofit. Habba said in court at the time that Carroll’s team “conspired to conceal the truth for nearly six months.”

The judge permitted Trump’s attorneys to question Carroll again in a deposition, which has not been made public.

When the trial began two weeks later Judge Lewis Kaplan said he saw no issue with Carroll’s credibility and blocked the lawyers from asking about Hoffman’s funding.

Caroll is still embroiled in multiple legal battles with the president. Juries awarded Carroll millions of dollars in damages, which the president is appealing. Trump has appealed the $5 million sexual abuse case judgement to the Supreme Court and has pledged to do the same with the $83 million defamation case.

The Supreme Court has deferred its decision on whether to take up Trump’s appeal twelve times. The most recent deferral was made Wednesday morning.

In a different case, the president unsuccessfully asked for the Justice Department to join the case as a defendant so that he could argue he is immune from liability. An appeals court panel of judges said the argument was raised too late in the legal process.

NGC 1514

What do you see in this crystal ball? The featured image shows NGC 1514, known as the Crystal Ball Nebula, observed by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, in Hawai'i. NGC 1514 is 1,500 light-years away and was discovered by William Herschel in 1790. This planetary nebula is formed when a star becomes a red giant and ejects its outer gas layers. The ejected shell of gas is heated up by the core of the star to temperatures hotter than the surface of our Sun: that makes the gas shine, creating beautiful images like this one. The slightly asymmetrical shape of the Crystal Ball Nebula reveals a secret: the bright star in the center has a companion. As the two stars orbit each other with a period of about nine years, they shape the gas around them. In about 10,000 - 25,000 years the nebula will be dissipated by their stellar winds.

A scandal-plagued, impeached, forced to take remedial ethics classes, and admitted to breaking securities laws

They’re All Ken Paxton Now

Texas Republicans chose a candidate who embodies something essential about the party under Trump.

Tim Murphy

When President Donald Trump endorsed Texas attorney general Ken Paxton earlier this month in his race to unseat four-term GOP Sen. John Cornyn, it fell to Lindsey Graham—as it so often does—to say the loud part loudest. 

Sure, Cornyn is Graham’s colleague. And Paxton is a scandal-plagued hack lawyer who has been impeached by members of his own party; forced to take remedial ethics classes; admitted to breaking securities law; reported to the FBI by his employees; investigated by own his state bar association; and whose wife has filed for divorce on “Biblical grounds.” But what Graham actually feared about the prospect of Paxton winning their primary was telling. “I think we’ll win Texas no matter what,” the South Carolina senator told reporters. “The truth of the matter is, Paxton will cost more money.”

For now, it’s Cornyn and his national Republican allies who have just lit giant bags of cash on fire, spending at least $92 million to produce the single worst primary performance for an incumbent Senator in almost fifty years. Next up for Republican funders after Paxton’s victory on Tuesday is an expensive general-election against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico that could help decide control of the chamber. 

Paxton’s win was not surprising, with Trump’s late endorsement perhaps more a reflection of the underlying realities than a determinative factor itself. But the margin was nonetheless stunning. Paxton won Republican voters by nearly two-to-one. Of the state’s 254 counties, all but one went for the AG. The exception was tiny Kennedy County—Cornyn carried it 6 votes to 2.

Incumbents almost never lose like this. But it’s not even the only time it’s happened this month. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who angered Trump by voting for conviction at the second impeachment trial, recently became the first incumbent senator to finish outside the top two in a primary since the 1940s, according to the Downballot. Last week, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie lost by nine points after bucking Trump on the Epstein files and the Iran war. Before that, the president helped take out six Republican legislators in Indiana who had blocked his push to redraw the state’s voting maps. Trump is more unpopular than he’s ever been in the general electorate. But among Republican primary voters, the bond has never been tighter.

Trump has always hovered over the Texas race in instructive ways. Cornyn and his supporters spent most of last year running a series of extremely blunt and ultimately kind of amusing attack ads with the goal of tanking Paxton’s numbers and scaring the president away. After the first round of the primary, when Cornyn unexpectedly came out on top in a three-person field, Trump said he was going to endorse one candidate soon and ask the other candidate to drop out, so the party could unite against Talarico. Paxton was quick to say that he would consider dropping out if the Senate would pass the SAVE Act, an omnibus voter suppression and election-malfeasance bill that’s somehow also anti-trans. The SAVE Act didn’t pass and Paxton’s bluff was safe—and in the end, Trump took another month to endorse.

Cornyn’s trajectory is instructive, although there are vanishingly few pre-MAGA Republicans left to take note of it. He was a less partisan attorney general than Paxton, in his previous life in Austin. In his current one in Washington, Cornyn passed a modest, bipartisan gun control law after the massacre in Uvalde, and called Trump “reckless” after January 6th. A lot of people in the chamber seemed to respect him. There is not even a billow of smoke about a messy personal life. But there has also probably never been a point in the last two years of Trump’s rule where anyone has thought, Well, John Cornyn will put a stop to this. He, too, told a story about what MAGA does to Republican officeholders, about how people who might know better simply find a different version of themselves. When Democrats in the state escaped to Illinois last summer to deny quorum, it was Cornyn who suggested the FBI be used to track them down. This was the fallacy of his campaign—that in order to stop Paxton, he must essentially become him. But there was no substitute for the real thing. 

As I explained in a profile of Paxton several years ago, the newly minted Republican nominee embodies something essential about the GOP in the age of Trump. He is remarkable not for his smarts or charisma, but for his willingness to do what is asked regardless of what might be proper. Shame can only hold you back. Under Paxton, the AG’s office has been a fully weaponized agency, that has launched frivolous but harassing investigations of voting rights groups and immigrant aid organizations; targeted Trump critics and Democrats; and built the legal foundation for overturning a presidential election. He has been elected over and over again by running against the enemies of Donald Trump and Christian nationalists—a Jewish Republican speaker; business-minded Republicans in the state legislature; a Bush scion; and now a white-haired elder statesmen who looked like someone who might broker a grand bargain even if he never really did.

It’s fitting that when Paxton was impeached in 2023, it was for allegedly using his office to benefit the interests of a single donor. While he was acquitted by the state senate and has denied wrongdoing, that kind of concierge service is the secret to his staying power. Increasingly, it’s just how you get ahead in Republican politics—not by blocking and tackling, or constituent services, or quietly building a reputation, but doing what is asked by the big guy.

Trump is who they want to be—saying and doing what he wants, making deals, getting rich. But Ken Paxton is all that most of them are: A bad lawyer looking to get ahead, background music in someone else’s story. After all, the Senate Republican caucus already includes two other former state attorneys general who signed the Texas AG’s shoddy brief seeking to throw out the results of the 2020 election. Graham and the rest will welcome him, even if it costs $100 million to get him there, because whoever was left of the old guard has retired or been forced out. There’s no more delusion about what a Republican senator is or needs to be in Trump’s second term: They’re all Ken Paxton now.

Climate Experts Alarmed

“Mind-Bogglingly Crazy”: Climate Experts Alarmed by Europe’s Deadly Spring Heatwaves

“Our bodies have not had time to acclimatize.”

Ajit Niranjan

Malcolm Mistry knew it was going to get “very warm, very quickly” on Monday morning but a slow start out of bed delayed his plans for an early game of cricket with his son. It was already 10 a.m. by the time the pair arrived at the sun-soaked nets of their local club in south-west London, and to the embarrassment of the 48-year-old scientist, who played cricket in his youth, his body was struggling after just half an hour of bowling.

Had he continued for another hour, Mistry reckons he would have probably suffered from heatstroke. Had he and his son stayed until noon, they would have found themselves straining their bodies in direct sunlight while a nearby weather station logged the UK’s hottest May temperature since records began.

“I could feel I was panting a bit more heavily,” said Mistry, a leading climate and health researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “That’s when I said to myself: ‘I need to stop here right now, immediately, before something happens.’”

The dark side of a gloriously hot European summer, excess mortality data compiled by experts such as Mistry shows, is an almost unfathomably large death toll—one that society rarely treats as a crisis. In 2024, summer heat in the EU claimed roughly three times more lives than car crashes, 16 times more than murderers, and more than 10,000 times more than terrorists.

This year, summer highs are striking before spring is even over. It may herald worse heat to come as parts of Europe brace for yet another torrid season of punishing extremes.

Temperatures over the weekend reached dizzying highs in the UK, which shattered its historical temperature record for the month by a full 2 C. The Monday peak of 34.8 C at London’s Kew Gardens was followed by a “tropical night” at Kenley airfield, with lows that did not drop below 21.3 C, and was beaten on Tuesday with a high of 35.1 C in west London. The Met Office said the temperatures would be “exceptional in the UK even in mid-summer, let alone in May.”

In France, where Monday highs surpassed 37.1 C in the south-west, the national warning system was activated for the first time in May since it was introduced in 2004, and seven deaths were linked to the heat. Météo-France said abnormally hot periods had occurred in the month in previous years, “but nothing comparable to this one.” Spain may endure temperatures as high as 40 C this week.

“Early-season heatwaves are especially hazardous because our bodies have not had time to acclimatize,” said Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, an environmental epidemiologist at Imperial College London, who estimates an extra 250 heat-related deaths will have occurred in England and Wales between Saturday and Monday.

“This exceptional spring heatwave is far more than an uncomfortable disruption to our sleep, work or study,” he said. “For vulnerable groups without access to cooling—particularly elderly people, the very young and those with underlying health conditions—these temperatures are quite simply dangerous and potentially fatal.”

The specific trigger for the record temperatures is an area of high pressure trapping heat. It comes on top of a global rise in average temperatures, which has increased the likelihood of extremes and made unprecedented highs an increasingly common reality.

Peter Thorne, a climate scientist at Maynooth University in Ireland, said: “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt” that the climate crisis had made heatwaves such as the latest one stronger and more likely. “But nevertheless, many of the records being set, particularly in the UK and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy.”

“This latest heatwave in Europe is a brutal reminder of the spiraling impacts of the climate crisis, both human and economic,” Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary. “The main culprit is the world’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas, and destroying forests. Many other parts of the world are also getting hit hard, such as India and other parts of Asia. The science is clear that human-induced climate change is making these heatwaves more frequent and extreme.”

Farmers across the continent have begun to sound the alarm over weather projections in recent weeks, with a regional lobby group in the Netherlands recently warning of stress from prolonged heat and drought. Last month, the young farmers association in Aragón, in Spain, warned of a possible “catastrophe” for cereal crops because of extreme heat and lack of rain.

Scientists have warned that El Niño, a warming weather pattern projected to return in a particularly potent form this year, could lead to even hotter temperatures in 2026. Current projections foresee it reaching moderate strength in the summer and peaking toward the end of the year, though official scientific bodies have warned that projections made before the end of spring are subject to great variability.

“What matters much more than hype around an upcoming El Niño is that we have permanently shifted the climate,” said Thorne. He compared it to walking into a casino and rolling a seven on a six-sided dice.

“I expect numerous notable extremes in Europe this summer because that is our new reality—but exactly what, where, when and with what impacts is not predictable,” he added. “But if you don’t lose this time, there is always next year. And coming back to the casino analogy, in the end the house always wins.”

Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, said: “This latest heatwave in Europe is a brutal reminder of the spiraling impacts of the climate crisis, both human and economic. The main culprit is the world’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas, and destroying forests. Many other parts of the world are also getting hit hard, such as India and other parts of Asia. The science is clear that human-induced climate change is making these heatwaves more frequent and extreme.”

Has Some Questions

Elizabeth Warren Has Some Questions for the Private Prison Executive Running ICE

Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency spent more than a decade at GEO Group.

Sophie Hurwitz

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a few questions for the head of ICE. On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Democrat sent a letter to David Venturella, the new acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking him to disclose any financial entanglements with the private prison giant GEO Group, where Venturella previously worked.

GEO Group is a major ICE contractor that operates a network of immigration detention centers, including Delaney Hall in New Jersey, where reports of detainee mistreatment have led to days of protests. The company has told investors that it is “preparing for what we believe is an unprecedented opportunity to help the federal government meet its expanded immigration enforcement priorities.”

In her letter, shared exclusively with Mother Jones, Warren asked that Venturella recuse himself from all matters that could benefit GEO Group, such as contract negotiations; that he make his ethics disclosures and related documents public; and that he answer a series of questions to clarify his potential ethics conflicts.

“Americans should not have to wonder whether ICE enforcement priorities are being driven by the financial interests of politically connected detention contractors,” Warren wrote to Venturella. “Your career can be characterized as a continuous, decades-long trip in and out of the revolving door between ICE and the private prison industry.” 

Venturella is one among many past and present ICE officials with deep ties to the private prison industry, but his connections are among the most egregious. He spent more than a decade as an executive at GEO Group, eventually managing the company’s federal contracts. Now, as Venturella takes the helm at ICE—he was appointed May 12 and is slated to start the job May 31—GEO Group is having a great year. 

“Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our company’s history, and we expect 2026 to be a very active year as well,” said GEO Group CEO George Zoley on a May 6 earnings, call touting the “new growth opportunities” that the firm “captured in 2025 and are normalizing in 2026.”

ICE contracts drove a year in which GEO made “up to approximately $520 million in new incremental annual revenues…the largest amount of new business” the company has ever drawn in a single year, Zoley said on that call. With Venturella leading ICE, he could now be in a position to negotiate contracts with his own former employer.

“Given your track record and previous employment at GEO Group, I request that you recuse yourself from all matters that could directly or indirectly benefit GEO Group, including through the award, writing, and execution of federal contracts,” Warren wrote. “Additionally, I request that you make your ethics disclosures, waiver agreements, recusals, and all related ethics guidance public.”

Venturella, legally, will eventually have to release some of this information—as a senior government official, he’ll theoretically be compelled to file a public financial disclosure document within 30 days of his May 31 appointment. There, he’ll list other positions held and money earned. (Venturella’s predecessor, Todd Lyons, filed a very sparse disclosure, featuring only funds related to his spouse’s employment by the Pentucket School District.) 

“Communities across the country are increasingly alarmed that the Trump Administration is building a deportation machine designed not only to terrorize immigrant families, but also to enrich a small network of politically connected contractors and former officials,” Warren charged. “Your longstanding ties to GEO Group and the resulting ethics concerns surrounding your appointment only deepen those fears.”

While employed by GEO Group, Venturella made at least $6 million and negotiated major contracts to reopen shuttered facilities. Venturella and ICE did not answer requests for comment prior to publication.