State organizations that advocate for disabled residents in New Jersey and Arkansas announced this week that they will have to limit their work due to not receiving the full federal funds they are owed by the US federal government.

Each state, territory, and Washington, DC, has a protection and advocacy agency to support the rights of disabled people, including providing one-on-one legal services. These agencies were created by the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975, which means their work is federally mandated. It’s currently unclear whether all protection and advocacy agencies have been impacted by shortages in federal funds.

“Are we going to a worldview that just contracts all those social services and basically says people must stand on their own or fall on their own?”

NJ.com reported that Disability Rights New Jersey (DRNJ) has received only $1.6 million of the $3.1 million it needs this year to represent disabled people, including those in group homes and in prisons. As a result, the agency—which also receives some state funding—is shutting down its services until May 5, and says it will not be able to make payroll next month if it does not receive its designated federal funds. The White House did not respond to NJ.com‘s request for comment on funding issues.

In Steubenville, Ohio, many students are considered to be economically disadvantaged. But unlike some similar towns and cities across the United States, standardized testing doesn’t strike fear among members of the school board, principals, and superintendent.

That’s because for the past two decades, 93 percent or more of students in Steubenville’s public schools have scored proficient on state reading tests by the time they’re in third grade.

“It was astonishing to me how amazing that elementary school was,” said Karin Chenoweth, who wrote about Steubenville in her 2009 book How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons From Unexpected Schools. According to research from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, Steubenville has routinely scored in the top 10 percent or better of schools nationwide for third-grade reading, sometimes scoring as high as the top 1 percent.

On Friday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in New Orleans deported members of two families, including young children and a pregnant mother, under circumstances that have raised serious due process concerns. Among those deported were three children who are US citizens, including a two-year-old who was born in New Orleans and a child with a rare form of metastatic cancer who’d been receiving treatment in the US.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleges that ICE did not allow the mothers and children detained to have substantial or any contact with attorneys and family members, including with the two-year-old’s father.

“If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring.”

“These families were lawfully complying with ICE’s orders and for this they suffered cruel and traumatic separation,”  Mich P. Gonzalez, founding partner of Sanctuary of the South, which provides legal assistance, said in a statement. “If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring.”

Ed Martin, the far-right activist–turned–acting US attorney for DC, apologized this week for praising an alleged Nazi sympathizer at an event last year.

But Martin’s ties to Timothy Hale-Cusanelli—who is known for wearing a Hitler-style mustache and who once allegedly told a co-worker that the Nazis “should have finished the job”—are far more extensive than just that one meeting.

Martin told the Forward this week that he was “sorry” for bestowing an award on Hale-Cusanelli during an August 2024 event at Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“I denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the way he talked, and all as I’ve now seen it,” Martin said. “At the time, I didn’t know it.”

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was charged with two felonies after being arrested by federal officers early Friday morning for allegedly helping a man without legal immigration status avoid arrest while in her courtroom on April 18. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Dugan helped direct an undocumented immigrant through a side door in her courtroom and down a private hallway into a public area when the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived to apprehend him.

The arrest of a sitting judge is a pivotal moment in the Trump administration’s escalation of immigration enforcement. It comes just months after the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to push forward criminal cases against local government officials who impede Trump’s immigration crackdown and go after state and local laws in court.

A spokesperson for the US Marshals Service in Washington, DC, confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Dugan was taken into custody at around 8 a.m. at the Milwaukee County Courthouse in Wisconsin. The spokesperson also told the newspaper that Dugan was charged with obstruction and concealing an individual. 

FBI Director Kash Patel posted the news on X on Friday morning, writing that the FBI arrested Dugan “on charges of obstruction” during an immigration arrest operation last week. According to Patel, the judge “intentionally misdirected federal agents” away from their target, allowing the man to evade arrest. (Patel later deleted his post.)

The Department of Justice has restored two previously canceled grants supporting victims of violent crimes, including domestic violence, following a Mother Jones report on Thursday that highlighted the critical roles the programs played for survivors.

The DOJ informed the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) and the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC) on Thursday night that officials would restore the grants they previously canceled on Tuesday. Those cancelations were reportedly part of mass cuts to grants worth more than $800 million, according to Reuters, that supported victims of gun violence, addiction, and domestic violence. The terminations came as especially ironic in light of President Donald Trump’s campaign trail pledge to “protect women” if re-elected and to offer “unending support to every victim of crime” per a proclamation he issued for National Crime Victims’ Rights Week earlier this month.

Mother Jones was the only news outlet to report on the NNEDV grant cancelation, which supports an email hotline that offers personalized legal information for survivors in English and Spanish. The canceled, and since-restored, $2 million, three-year grant was intended to “increase awareness of and enhance access to its Spanish email hotline services.” On Tuesday, NNEDV officials learned that the remainder of the grant, about a half million dollars, was cut. A spokesperson previously said that while the NNEDV hoped to keep the services going with alternative funding, they would wind up being  “drastically reduced.”

In a statement provided to Mother Jones on Friday, Stephanie Love-Patterson, the organization’s president and CEO, said that while officials are “relieved and appreciative” that the grant cancelation was reversed, “the concerns and heartache remain, as this highlights the vulnerable state of services for survivors, which will affect those who need them most.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

China will continue to push forward on the climate crisis, Xi Jinping has said while appearing to criticize the “protectionism” of Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

The Chinese president was attending a closed-door virtual meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and about a dozen other heads of state and government to discuss the climate crisis.

Xi told the meeting that China would “not slow down its climate actions,” according a draft of his remarks. He did not name the US or Trump but made apparent reference to them while noting that China had “built the world’s largest and fastest-growing renewable energy systems as well as the largest and most complete new energy industrial chain.”

When we think of “organizing,” we tend to think of protesters—of scruffy and earnest demonstrators taking on giant corporations, of people with cardboard signs standing in the cold or the sun. But really, organizing is any concentrated attempt of the (relatively) small and many to stand up to the mighty and few, and the last few days have seen some of the most unlikely and potentially effective organizing in a long time.

In this case, the small and many were not people used to thinking of themselves that way. Instead, they were university presidents and boards of trustees—almost without exception people of real distinction and power in their communities. I’ve served on university boards and broken bread with hundreds of college presidents (the price of lecturing to their students), and I know the breed: They tend toward the cautious and the conciliatory, but they have big reserves of local influence. They are, invariably, pillars of the community.

And so when President Donald Trump decided to try to crumple those pillars, they decided to stand up, circulating a letter that’s now been signed by more than 400 college presidents. It was—perhaps only after the Hands Off demonstrations and Tesla Takedowns—the most effective response yet to the creeping fascism in the Oval Office.

Everyone took their lead and their nerve from Harvard University, where President Alan Garber and board chair Penny Pritzker pushed back hard a week ago against the administration’s attempt to basically take over the university in order to enforce something called “viewpoint diversity.” Harvard’s sharp response obviously stunned the White House, which had doubtless been lulled by Columbia University’s pathetic capitulation; as is often the case with bullies, Trump started looking for a way to back down, with his people eventually claiming that they had sent Harvard their diktat “by mistake.”

On Friday, Federal District Court Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the Trump administration had failed to comply with a court order requiring it to provide information about what it is doing to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the US government mistakenly sent to one of the world’s worst prisons in El Salvador.

When Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign appeared in federal court in Maryland earlier on Friday, he had no information to provide about what his client, the Trump administration, had done to comply with her order. 

“Have they done anything?” Xinis asked, according to the Hill. 

“Your honor, I don’t have personal knowledge,” Ensign replied. 

On March 15, federal agents rounded up more than 230 Venezuelan nationals who were then deported to El Salvador and locked up in the country’s notorious megaprison. The Trump administration said the men belonged to a violent Venezuelan gang, but presented no evidence, and there were no court hearings in which the men could contest the allegations. 

Nearly a month later, families of the Venezuelan men say they have heard nothing about their fate. It’s as if they disappeared. 

“We’re living in a world where you can just be rounded up with no hearing, not even an administrative hearing, nothing,” says immigration attorney Joseph Giardina. “Why couldn’t you have let their cases be adjudicated? There’s no logical answer other than a publicity stunt.” 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently denied a request from health officials in Milwaukee to investigate a lead poisoning crisis in that city’s aging schools. Instead, the city’s 67,500 public school students seem to be caught in the crosshairs of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mission to massively overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss of our Lead Program, we will be unable to support you with this,” Aaron Bernstein, director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, told city officials in an email obtained by CBS News.

Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic whose unorthodox approach to health and medicine has made him a perfect acolyte for Donald Trump and his best known sidekick, Elon Musk. Despite recently flip-flopping on the measles vaccine after a recent outbreak in Texas, he’s also forced a top vaccine official out of office and killed the National Institutes of Health’s climate change programs.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy promised to cut 10,000 of the agency’s 82,000 jobs in an effort to streamline the federal government’s efficiency. “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl,” Kennedy told reporters in March, according to the Guardian. “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”

On March 15, federal agents rounded up more than 230 Venezuelan nationals who were then deported to El Salvador and locked up in the country’s notorious megaprison. The Trump administration said the men belonged to a violent Venezuelan gang, but presented no evidence, and there were no court hearings in which the men could contest the allegations. 

Nearly a month later, families of the Venezuelan men say they have heard nothing about their fate. It’s as if they disappeared. 

“We’re living in a world where you can just be rounded up with no hearing, not even an administrative hearing, nothing,” says immigration attorney Joseph Giardina. “Why couldn’t you have let their cases be adjudicated? There’s no logical answer other than a publicity stunt.” 

On Wednesday, S.W., an award-winning probationary worker at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), spent the day crying in bed. 

S.W., who is being identified by her initials due to fear of retaliation for speaking out, is one of more than 24,000 federal probationary employees, those who have been in their jobs for a year or two or less, who were fired en masse on Valentine’s Day as part of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s purge of federal workers. A month later, in mid-March, she and thousands of other probationary workers were reinstated following a court order. For S.W., who said she is five months pregnant and her family’s breadwinner, getting that news felt like a win. “I felt so happy, I was on top of the world.” 

Her hope was dashed Wednesday, when an appeals court allowed the Trump administration to resume terminations of probationary workers. It was one of two court rulings this week that allowed the firings of federal probationary workers to proceed, along with a Tuesday decision from the Supreme Court in which a majority of the justices ruled that the nonprofit organizations fighting the firings lacked standing to sue over them.

After getting the news, S.W. felt herself slipping back into the depression that she fell into after initially being fired in February. “This week, I feel like I’m failing my child,” she said, referring to her pregnancy. “Her mom is not emotionally in a good place.” 

Democratic lawmakers are calling for federal agencies and state attorneys general to investigate whether President Donald Trump, members of his administration, or any of his associates manipulated markets or helped enrich allies in connection with Trump’s sudden reversal on tariff polices Wednesday.

Six top Democrats wrote to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins Friday, asking the agency to investigate “whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the president’s announcement.”

In varied missives over the last few days, Democrats—who for months have publicly struggled with how aggressively to combat Trump—have taken direct aim at the economic damage inflicted by the president’s erratic tariff policy. And they have zeroed in on seemingly suspicious trading activity that took place ahead of Trump’s about-face.

“It is unconscionable that as American families are concerned about their financial security during this economic crisis entirely manufactured by the President, insiders may have actively profited from the market volatility and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public,” Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Dogs have “extensive and multifarious” environmental impacts, disturbing wildlife, polluting waterways and contributing to carbon emissions, new research has found.

An Australian review of existing studies has argued that “the environmental impact of owned dogs is far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than is generally recognised”.

While the environmental impact of cats is well known, the comparative effect of pet dogs has been poorly acknowledged, the researchers said.

A Louisiana immigration judge ruled Friday that recent Columbia graduate and Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported—even though Khalil has a green card, is a lawful permanent resident, and has not been charged with any crimes.

The judge gave Khalil’s attorneys until April 23 to ask for a stay of the deportation. There is a separate case in federal court in New Jersey still ongoing over whether Khalil’s arrest on March 8th violated his First Amendment rights.

The rationale for deporting Khalil is obscure. Secretary of State Marco Rubio submitted a two-page letter arguing, essentially, that Khalil is deportable on the basis of ideas: his “past, current, or expected beliefs,” though “otherwise lawful,” nonetheless make his presence a threat to US foreign policy. Rubio relied on a little-known law that says the Secretary of State can personally determine whether a noncitizen’s presence in the US harms national security goals.

The US, following the Trump administration’s executive order on antisemitism, has said Khalil—and other pro-Palestine activists—are harming the US goal of combatting antisemitism. Immigration judge Jamee Coman said she has no authority to question the Secretary of State.

Amid intense outrage over the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts student who was ambushed and detained by plainclothes federal immigration officers this week, Marco Rubio appeared gratified.

“We revoked her visa, it’s an F-1 visa, I believe,” the secretary of State told reporters at a press conference in Guyana on Thursday when asked about the arrest. “We revoked it and I’ll tell you why.”

“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student,” Rubio continued with increasing conviction, “and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa.”

“Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” he added, estimating that as many as 300 people have similarly had their visas revoked as the Trump administration pursues its dramatic crackdown on free speech.

On Thursday, the federal Department of Health and Human Services moved, through a department-wide restructuring order, to eliminate the Administration for Community Living (ACL), a subsidiary established in 2012 to support disabled and aging people—part of a broader series of cuts that will see the firing of some 10,000 HHS staff. HHS’ press release on the restructuring claims that ACL’s responsibilities will be redesignated elsewhere within the department, which has yet to issue further details or clarify its plans. An unknown number of the administration’s workers will also be laid off.

Jill Jacobs, a Biden-era commissioner of ACL’s Administration on Disabilities, was shocked to hear the news. “It’s not something that’s been on anyone’s radar, not a conversation that anyone’s been having,” said Jacobs, who is now the executive director of the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities.

“Where exactly are they going to go? Who is going to implement [it]? Is this the first step in cutting further programs?”

Mia Ives-Rublee, senior director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the nonpartisan Center for American Progress, believes that the move “shows that this administration is not committed to community living and the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

This story was originally published on the author’s substack, Field Notes with Alexander C Kaufman, to which you can subscribe here.

Last week, Greenlanders trudged through snow and ice to cast ballots in their most closely watched parliamentary elections in modern history—possibly ever.

Just two months earlier, Donald Trump had returned to power, vowing to achieve what American presidents had tried and failed to do before: bring the world’s largest island under Washington’s direct control. Since World War II, the United States has boasted a large security presence in the autonomous Arctic territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. During a speech before Congress a week before the March 11 election, Trump repeated his offer for Greenlanders to join the United States but vowed to take the island “one way or the other.”

Greenlandic voters overwhelmingly rejected the invitation. While virtually all major parties support independence from Denmark, the party that won the most seats in the legislature backs a slow separation from the Nordic nation, which provides the bulk of Greenland’s public funding.

On Friday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to lift a lower court ruling blocking the mass deportation of thousands of detained Venezuelan migrants under the controversial Aliens Enemies Act of 1798, claiming in a filing that it has a “rigorous process” for identifying gang members.

However, Mother Jones‘ reporting suggests that the Trump administration is detaining people without due process on the flimsiest evidence, including their tattoos.

Since March, Donald Trump has been using the Alien Enemies Act to give himself the power to send migrants to El Salvador under the loosest of suspicion that they’re connected to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the president has designated as a “global terrorist group.” Despite claiming to have a strict vetting process of identifying alleged TdA members, the Trump administration has provided little to no evidence that this is the case. As my colleagues Noah Lanard and Isabela Dias reported,

When pressed on the criteria used for their identification, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed to unspecified “intelligence” deployed to arrest the Venezuelans she has referred to as “heinous monsters.” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has insisted—without providing specific details—that the public should trust ICE to have correctly targeted the Venezuelans based on “criminal investigations,” social media posts, and surveillance.