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\n A heated debate over criticism of Israel and the political influencer Hasan Piker’s role on the left has bitterly divided progressive and establishment Democrats in a US Senate race in Michigan, an electorally critical swing state. The ongoing controversy probably marks a preview of things to come as the midterm and 2028 election seasons ramp up, and it is drawing warnings from Arab American leaders in a state where the party’s Israel policy badly damaged Kamala Harris’s campaign.
\nMallory McMorrow, a state senator favored by much of the establishment, is locked in a tight three-way race with the progressive Abdul El-Sayed, and Haley Stevens, the US representative who is backed by Aipac. El-Sayed and Piker last week announced plans to rally together. In response, McMorrow, the Anti-Defamation League, the Trump administration, Third Way, Senator Elissa Slotkin and other pro-Israel figures went on the offensive, labeling Piker as antisemitic and seeking to tar El-Sayed over his association with him.
\n\nPiker, who is Muslim and has an audience of 3 million on the Twitch streaming platform, often strongly criticizes Israel over its assault on Gaza, Lebanon invasion, war with Iran, treatment of Palestinian people, and other issues, sometimes in provocative terms – he described Hamas as “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state”. He is also a heavyweight political force with a massive following among younger voters: Piker interviewed and earned praise from Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and was invited by the Harris campaign to livestream from the Democratic national convention in August 2024.
\nSeven Arab American leaders who spoke with the Guardian say centrist Democrats’ attack on El-Sayed and Piker are strategic and moral blunders that show the party is making the same mistakes that fueled their 2024 electoral demise in this critical swing state and nationally.
\nThey dismissed the attacks as an effort to censor criticism of Israel, and an expression of anti-Arab bias that imbues much of the political establishment. Michigan holds the nation’s largest Arab American population per capita in the US, and it is anchored by a huge Lebanese diaspora largely from southern Lebanon. The controversy unfolds amid Israel’s assault on southern Lebanon, and as Israel and its military action are deeply unpopular among Democrats.
\n“They are not showing empathy toward Lebanese and Muslim communities,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations Action.
\nHarris lost Michigan in 2024 by a narrow 80,000 votes, and by one estimate support for Israel cost her 100,000 votes here. A November 2024 Guardian analysis found a 22,000-vote swing away from Democrats in the three cities with the largest Arab American and Muslim populations alone. Nationally, one poll found it to be the top issue for Democrats who did not support Harris.
\n“Some in the Democratic party haven’t learned from 2024,” Elkarra added. “Especially in a battleground state, I think they’re going to suffer the consequences in 2028 if they don’t rectify their strategy.”
\n***
\nThis moment in Michigan is particularly sensitive. McMorrow and her surrogates have said Piker should be shunned because the rallies come less than a month after the Temple Israel synagogue attack, which was widely condemned by the Arab American community in Michigan. McMorrow did not respond to requests for comment.
\n“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” McMorrow said to Jewish Insider while highlighting that children were at the synagogue. “You don’t fan the flames.”
\n\nBut Arab American and Muslim community leaders who spoke with the Guardian stressed that both sides’ suffering can be acknowledged as the Middle East conflict intensifies. They see the exclusion of their pain as a deliberate political maneuver.
\nIsrael’s Lebanon invasion has displaced more than 1 million civilians in recent months, and the IDF has begun wiping out Lebanese villages that some Michiganders or their families are from “in accordance with the model in Gaza”, in the words of Israel’s defense minister. Virtually every one of the 120,000 Lebanese American people in Michigan has family members or friends who have been displaced or killed by Israel, Arab Americans who spoke with the Guardian said.
\n“There is an asymmetry of compassion and asymmetry of political pressure – Arabs get the pressure and Israel gets compassion,” said James Zogby, a Lebanese American member of the Democratic National Committee. “No one will pay attention to the human element of the situation, which is that their ancestral village is gone, and their homes demolished.”
\nIn an interview with the Guardian, El-Sayed expressed a similar sentiment: “The Arab community, their voice and their pain has been rendered insignificant or, even worse, an inconvenient aspect of our political situation.”
\n\nNational polling shows more Democrats sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis, support for Israel’s war in Gaza plummeted as low as 8% among party voters, and the vast majority of Democrats support an arms embargo. Piker frequently expresses sympathy for the Palestinian people, criticizes Israel’s wars, and calls for an arms embargo.
\nPiker called the Temple Israel attack a “heinous act of violence”. But he said he also believed it was “Islamophobic to say: ‘Oh, this Muslim critic of Israel who has the majority opinion on Israel should not be going to a campaign rally.’
\n“Michigan is a state [Democrats] lost for this exact reason.”
\nWhen asked about a comment in which he labeled some Orthodox Jews in Israel “inbred”, Piker told the Guardian he uses the term “as a pejorative against ethnoreligious and racial supremacists of all different varieties – it has nothing to do with Judaism”. He has largely said he stands by his comments, but has also recently expressed regret about the “inbred” comment, and said he could have been more careful.
\nPiker said he regularly educates listeners about the dangers of antisemitism and “how it is the canary in the coalmine of fascism”.
\n“I will continue to do this because antisemitism is morally repugnant, but the difference is I believe that antisemitism and Islamophobia are morally repugnant … and I’m an anti-genocide, antifascist and therefore an anti-Zionist,” Piker said.
\n***
\nThough many of El-Sayed’s and Piker’s political positions are aligned, El-Sayed told the Guardian he did not agree with everything Piker has said, and he also offered an explanation on X. But he said winning requires talking with anyone from Joe Rogan to Hasan Piker. To illustrate the point, El-Sayed appeared on Fox News last week.
\nThe interests of all Michiganders and Arab Americans are “one and the same”, El-Sayed said.
\n“Every dollar that we spend on an aimless, illegal, unjustified war in Iran that allows Israel to annex southern Lebanon and destroy people and their lives, is a dollar not spent to improve our schools, provide people with healthcare and fix our broken infrastructure.”
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John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected. This comes amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown that has lasted 45 days.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse, after both chambers of Congress remain at an impasse on passing a bill to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress is now on a scheduled two-week recess, and many members have left Washington for their districts. The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers are expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon. It’s the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nTalks over ending the record-breaking partial government shutdown remain at an impasse, as congress is on its scheduled two-week recess. TSA employees began to get some backpay on Monday, but their union said it’s not enough and is calling on lawmakers to return to Washington DC and end the shutdown.
\nHere’s what else happened today:
\nAllegations swirl that a broker for Pete Hegseth inquired into an investment in key defense companies before the Iran war began. The Morgan Stanley broker allegedly made an inquiry with BlackRock regarding an investment into a defense-focused equity fund. The Pentagon denied the allegations calling them “entirely false and fabricated”.
\nFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. This would make the airport the latest in a long list of institutions, government programs, buildings and even money named after the president.
\nThe US government has directed all of its embassies and consulates to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda. Marco Rubio signed a cable on Monday directing the embassies to coordinate with the US military’s psychological operations unit to address disinformation. It suggested using Elon Musk’s social media platform X to carry out the campaign.
\nJosé Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, becomes the 14th known person to die in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since the beginning of the year. He was found unconscious in his bunk last week at the Adelanto detention center in California and pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby medical center.
\nThe army is investigating a helicopter fly-by at Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee on Saturday. Two army choppers on a training run visited and hovered by the rocker’s house as he saluted them. According to the army, there was no official request for the fly-by, which triggered the administrative review.
\nA two-year-old detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement family detention center in Dilley, Texas, is said to be sick and not getting adequate help. Joaquin Castro, a democratic congressman from San Antonio, raised alarms on X on Monday saying that the boy has a fever and isn’t eating. He called on ICE to provide proper medical care to the child and release him and his month immediately.
\nSenate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers were expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon, and is the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The spike in the price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nCalifornia Congressman Ro Khanna requested a meeting with King Charles during his upcoming visit to the US. Khanna said he’d like to bring survivors of the late sex offender Jefferey Epstein to the meeting.
\n“As you are aware, this is not solely an American matter,” Khanna wrote in a letter to King Charles. “Epstein’s network had significant ties to the United Kingdom through Ghislaine Maxwell, through Epstein’s relationships with British public figures, and through the social and political circles in which he operated. These connections raise broader questions about how Epstein was able to maintain influence, credibility, and protection across borders for so long.”
\nKhanna is the co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has been active in advocating of behalf of Epstein’s victims and calling for the release of the files regarding the disgraced financier.
\nKing Charles is scheduled to visit the US the week of April 27th and is expected to address a joint meeting of Congress. King Charles’ younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to his ties to Epstein. Peter Mandelson, a former UK ambassador to the US, was also arrested in February on similar allegations.
\n“A meeting with survivors would provide an opportunity to identify any additional information British institutions and individuals may be able to share and open a dialogue about whether there will be a full accounting of how Epstein’s and Maxwell’s network operated in the United Kingdom,” Khanna wrote in his letter. “It would also ensure that survivors are heard directly and that these matters are addressed with transparency, seriousness, and accountability.”
","cleanBody":"California Congressman Ro Khanna requested a meeting with King Charles during his upcoming visit to the US. Khanna said he’d like to bring survivors of the late sex offender Jefferey Epstein to the meeting. “As you are aware, this is not solely an American matter,” Khanna wrote in a letter to King Charles. “Epstein’s network had significant ties to the United Kingdom through Ghislaine Maxwell, through Epstein’s relationships with British public figures, and through the social and political circles in which he operated. These connections raise broader questions about how Epstein was able to maintain influence, credibility, and protection across borders for so long.” Khanna is the co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has been active in advocating of behalf of Epstein’s victims and calling for the release of the files regarding the disgraced financier. King Charles is scheduled to visit the US the week of April 27th and is expected to address a joint meeting of Congress. King Charles’ younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to his ties to Epstein. Peter Mandelson, a former UK ambassador to the US, was also arrested in February on similar allegations. “A meeting with survivors would provide an opportunity to identify any additional information British institutions and individuals may be able to share and open a dialogue about whether there will be a full accounting of how Epstein’s and Maxwell’s network operated in the United Kingdom,” Khanna wrote in his letter. “It would also ensure that survivors are heard directly and that these matters are addressed with transparency, seriousness, and accountability.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb1bb48f08cbd9debe9391","title":"Florida to rename Palm Beach airport after Donald Trump","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:27Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:26Z","body":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
\nTrump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1.
\nThe Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president.
\nDeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Trump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1. The Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president. DeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb16d88f0887f60811aa5f","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:37:24Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:37:23Z","body":"The Pentagon is denying reports that a broker for Pete Hegseth looked into making investments in defense companies before the Iran war. Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon and assistant to Hegseth, said in a post on X that the allegations are “entirely false and fabricated”.
\n“Secretary Hegseth and the Department of War remain unwavering in their commitment to the highest standards of ethics and strict adherence to all applicable laws and regulations,” Parnell posted.
\nAccording to a report by the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter, a Morgan Stanley broker who worked for Hegseth contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF. The investment reportedly didn’t go through.
\nParnell said: “Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment. This is yet another baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the public.”
","cleanBody":"The Pentagon is denying reports that a broker for Pete Hegseth looked into making investments in defense companies before the Iran war. Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon and assistant to Hegseth, said in a post on X that the allegations are “entirely false and fabricated”. “Secretary Hegseth and the Department of War remain unwavering in their commitment to the highest standards of ethics and strict adherence to all applicable laws and regulations,” Parnell posted. According to a report by the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter, a Morgan Stanley broker who worked for Hegseth contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF. The investment reportedly didn’t go through. Parnell said: “Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment. This is yet another baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the public.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb11308f08cbd9debe9356","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:17:03Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:17:02Z","body":"The TSA workers union is calling on congress to end the shutdown and fund the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement on Monday, Hydrick Thomas, the union’s president, said TSA workers have been showing up to work for weeks despite not getting paid.
\n“We have performed our duty,” Thomas said. “Unfortunately, Congress has failed to perform theirs. To leave Washington while tens of thousands of workers are going without pay shows a clear lack of respect for the essential employees tasked with keeping our nation safe.”
\nCongress just started a two-week recess as the partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, sees no end in sight. The shutdown has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Late last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order for TSA agents to receive backpay for at least two paychecks.
\nThe American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) TSA Council 100 is the exclusive union for more than 45,000 TSA officers across the country. Thomas said that even with agents now getting some backpay, it’s still financially difficult.
\n“Many of our members have seen bills pile up, interest and late fees add up, cars repossessed, and families thrown into disarray because Congress has failed to do their jobs,” Thomas said. “Backpay alone does not fix those problems… To say we are utterly disgusted and disappointed with our elected officials is an understatement.”
","cleanBody":"The TSA workers union is calling on congress to end the shutdown and fund the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement on Monday, Hydrick Thomas, the union’s president, said TSA workers have been showing up to work for weeks despite not getting paid. “We have performed our duty,” Thomas said. “Unfortunately, Congress has failed to perform theirs. To leave Washington while tens of thousands of workers are going without pay shows a clear lack of respect for the essential employees tasked with keeping our nation safe.” Congress just started a two-week recess as the partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, sees no end in sight. The shutdown has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Late last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order for TSA agents to receive backpay for at least two paychecks. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) TSA Council 100 is the exclusive union for more than 45,000 TSA officers across the country. Thomas said that even with agents now getting some backpay, it’s still financially difficult. “Many of our members have seen bills pile up, interest and late fees add up, cars repossessed, and families thrown into disarray because Congress has failed to do their jobs,” Thomas said. “Backpay alone does not fix those problems… To say we are utterly disgusted and disappointed with our elected officials is an understatement.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb0be68f083204a736aee9","title":"US directs its embassies to wage campaign against foreign ‘hostility’","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:43Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:42Z","body":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.
\nThe cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.
\nIt comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it. The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad. It comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["joseph-gedeon"]},{"id":"block-69cb05ea8f0887f60811a9dd","title":"Pete Hegseth's broker inquired into defense fund investment before Iran war, FT reports","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:13Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:12Z","body":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times.
\nThe defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter.
\nThe inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir.
\nAccording to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase.
\nHegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.
","cleanBody":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times. The defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir. According to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase. Hegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cafdc08f083204a736ae93","title":"José Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, dies in ICE detention in LA","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","body":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began.
\nSecurity staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm.
\nAt his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE.
\nIt was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began. Security staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm. At his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE. It was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["roque-planas"]},{"id":"block-69cafab58f083204a736ae78","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:39:37Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:35:00Z","body":"A protest statue has appeared on the National Mall in Washington DC: a baroque-styled marble and gold toilet. It’s built like a throne, where anyone can sit on the commode as if it were a chair.
\n\n “A Throne Fit for a King,” reads a plaque attached to the statue. “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln bathroom in the White House.”
\n![\"The](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/2bf746be2668ad92e317af42f8e158a303edd483/668_0_6681_5347/1000.jpg\")
\n The throne comes as Donald Trump is remaking the White House in his image. Along with renovating the Lincoln bathroom, he’s had gilded doilies attached to the walls of the Oval Office and had the East Wing of the building torn down to build a massive ballroom. The president is long-rumored to own a gold toilet.
\nThe statue comes after another protest piece appeared on the Mall depicting Trump and the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands. The roll of toilet paper with the toilet throne reads “The Secret Handshake”, which is the name of the group that claimed responsibility for the hand-holding statue.
\n![\"A](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/29b784b74cac019f77c341b06fcb722b7b62b9ee/688_0_6880_5504/1000.jpg\")
\n Lindsey Graham appears to have spent last weekend at Disney World, riding Space Mountain in the theme park’s Magic Kingdom, according to TMZ. The Republican senator from South Carolina’s Florida vacation comes amid a more than six-week partial government shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
\nPhotos captured by TMZ show Graham waiting in line for rides, eating at a breakfast buffet and strolling through Disney World with what looks like a bubble wand in his hand. The gossip news site said Graham spent three days at the theme park.
\nThe partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Graham told TMZ he was in Florida to meet with Trump officials, and then went to Orlando afterwards.
\nOn Monday, Graham blamed the democrats for the shutdown in a post on X and referenced working on a “new deal” for DHS: “Threats to our country are through the roof and it’s well past time to pay all workers. Schumer and gang are playing a dangerous game with our homeland security.”
","cleanBody":"Lindsey Graham appears to have spent last weekend at Disney World, riding Space Mountain in the theme park’s Magic Kingdom, according to TMZ. The Republican senator from South Carolina’s Florida vacation comes amid a more than six-week partial government shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Photos captured by TMZ show Graham waiting in line for rides, eating at a breakfast buffet and strolling through Disney World with what looks like a bubble wand in his hand. The gossip news site said Graham spent three days at the theme park. The partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Graham told TMZ he was in Florida to meet with Trump officials, and then went to Orlando afterwards. On Monday, Graham blamed the democrats for the shutdown in a post on X and referenced working on a “new deal” for DHS: “Threats to our country are through the roof and it’s well past time to pay all workers. Schumer and gang are playing a dangerous game with our homeland security.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]}],"keyEvents":[{"id":"block-69cad56b8f083204a736ad9d","title":"Here's a recap of the day so far","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T20:04:03Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:22:45Z","body":"Senate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected. This comes amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown that has lasted 45 days.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse, after both chambers of Congress remain at an impasse on passing a bill to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress is now on a scheduled two-week recess, and many members have left Washington for their districts. The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers are expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon. It’s the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nThe army is investigating what appears to be a detour taken by two Apache helicopters on a training run on Saturday. The helicopters under question visited and hovered alongside Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee.
\nKid Rock, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter and rock musician, posted a video to X showing him salute the choppers as they flew by.
\n“This is a level of respect that shit for brains Governor of California will never know. God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her,” Kid Rock wrote on his post, along with an American Flag and prayer hands emoji.
\nAccording to the Associated Press, there was no official request from Kid Rock to have the helicopters fly by, which is what triggered the administrative review.
\n“Army aviators must adhere to strict safety standards, professionalism, and established flight regulations... Appropriate action will be taken if any violations are found,” the army said in a written statement.
","cleanBody":"The army is investigating what appears to be a detour taken by two Apache helicopters on a training run on Saturday. The helicopters under question visited and hovered alongside Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee. Kid Rock, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter and rock musician, posted a video to X showing him salute the choppers as they flew by. “This is a level of respect that shit for brains Governor of California will never know. God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her,” Kid Rock wrote on his post, along with an American Flag and prayer hands emoji. According to the Associated Press, there was no official request from Kid Rock to have the helicopters fly by, which is what triggered the administrative review. “Army aviators must adhere to strict safety standards, professionalism, and established flight regulations... Appropriate action will be taken if any violations are found,” the army said in a written statement.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cafdc08f083204a736ae93","title":"José Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, dies in ICE detention in LA","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","body":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began.
\nSecurity staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm.
\nAt his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE.
\nIt was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began. Security staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm. At his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE. It was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["roque-planas"]},{"id":"block-69cb05ea8f0887f60811a9dd","title":"Pete Hegseth's broker inquired into defense fund investment before Iran war, FT reports","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:13Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:12Z","body":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times.
\nThe defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter.
\nThe inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir.
\nAccording to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase.
\nHegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.
","cleanBody":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times. The defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir. According to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase. Hegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb0be68f083204a736aee9","title":"US directs its embassies to wage campaign against foreign ‘hostility’","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:43Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:42Z","body":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.
\nThe cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.
\nIt comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it. The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad. It comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["joseph-gedeon"]},{"id":"block-69cb1bb48f08cbd9debe9391","title":"Florida to rename Palm Beach airport after Donald Trump","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:27Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:26Z","body":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
\nTrump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1.
\nThe Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president.
\nDeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Trump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1. The Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president. DeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb293e8f083204a736af6e","title":"Today’s recap","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T02:06:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T02:06:11Z","body":"Talks over ending the record-breaking partial government shutdown remain at an impasse, as congress is on its scheduled two-week recess. TSA employees began to get some backpay on Monday, but their union said it’s not enough and is calling on lawmakers to return to Washington DC and end the shutdown.
\nHere’s what else happened today:
\nAllegations swirl that a broker for Pete Hegseth inquired into an investment in key defense companies before the Iran war began. The Morgan Stanley broker allegedly made an inquiry with BlackRock regarding an investment into a defense-focused equity fund. The Pentagon denied the allegations calling them “entirely false and fabricated”.
\nFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. This would make the airport the latest in a long list of institutions, government programs, buildings and even money named after the president.
\nThe US government has directed all of its embassies and consulates to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda. Marco Rubio signed a cable on Monday directing the embassies to coordinate with the US military’s psychological operations unit to address disinformation. It suggested using Elon Musk’s social media platform X to carry out the campaign.
\nJosé Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, becomes the 14th known person to die in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since the beginning of the year. He was found unconscious in his bunk last week at the Adelanto detention center in California and pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby medical center.
\nThe army is investigating a helicopter fly-by at Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee on Saturday. Two army choppers on a training run visited and hovered by the rocker’s house as he saluted them. According to the army, there was no official request for the fly-by, which triggered the administrative review.
\nA two-year-old detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement family detention center in Dilley, Texas, is said to be sick and not getting adequate help. Joaquin Castro, a democratic congressman from San Antonio, raised alarms on X on Monday saying that the boy has a fever and isn’t eating. He called on ICE to provide proper medical care to the child and release him and his month immediately.
\nSenate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers were expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon, and is the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The spike in the price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nThis live blog is now closed.
\nTrump news at a glance: US promotes Elon Musk’s X to fight foreign propaganda
\nAs thousands of US soldiers and marines arrive in the Middle East, Iran is accusing Washington of privately plotting a ground assault while publicly touting ceasefire talks. Donald Trump threatened to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s energy infrastructure, said his ‘preference would be to take the oil’ in Iran and that US forces could seize the regime’s export hub on Kharg Island, while also claiming he was in talks with a new ‘reasonable regime’. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi forces have also entered the conflict, bringing the threat of further damage to the global economy.
Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist and host of Politics Weekly America, Jonathan Freedland
","type":"youtube"}]},"trailText":"This live blog is now closed.","showQuotedHeadline":false,"showLiveIndicator":false,"sublinks":[],"mainImage":{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/296564c17b060e9b21c7e5b565cec00e2b67d6ef/1146_311_4955_3966/master/4955.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=23016da70a35faf093bb5e21a693bdd5","height":3966,"width":4955,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Aaron Schwartz/Reuters","altText":"Passengers wait in a TSA security checkpoint queue that stretches through an airport in Baltimore, Maryland.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Reuters"},"renderedItemProd":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/mar/30/donald-trump-shutdown-ice-dhs-tsa-airports-iran-jd-vance-latest-news-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemBeta":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/mar/30/donald-trump-shutdown-ice-dhs-tsa-airports-iran-jd-vance-latest-news-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemDebug":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/mar/30/donald-trump-shutdown-ice-dhs-tsa-airports-iran-jd-vance-latest-news-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"cardDesignType":"Article","correspondingTags":[],"type":"Article","importance":0},{"title":"Trump to revoke protections for endangered species in Gulf of Mexico","rawTitle":"Trump to revoke protections for endangered species in Gulf of Mexico","item":{"trailText":"President is convening so-called ‘God squad’ to override provisions of Endangered Species Act for ‘national security’","body":"Donald Trump is dispatching a so-called “God squad” of top officials to revoke protections for endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, purportedly to protect national security by expanding oil and gas industry operations.
\nIf successful, the administration may kill off dozens of protected species – from Rice’s whales and whooping cranes to sea turtles.
\nThe rarely used “God squad” provision in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) allows a president to convene a committee of agency heads empowered to effectively veto protections for species on the brink of extinction. The committee essentially weighs whether the benefits from a proposed project outweigh the continued existence of protected wildlife.
\nThe Trump administration is attempting to justify the ESA exemption for “reasons of national security”, marking the first time a security claim has been made. However, oil and gas companies have not asked for the exemption, raising questions about why it is being requested, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to stop the committee from convening.
\n\nThe move is presumably aimed at bringing down gas prices that are soaring amid the US-Israel war on Iran, opponents say. Trump wants to make it appear as if the administration is taking action over the growing crisis, but the claim that there is a national security threat is “nonsense” for a multitude of reasons, Hartl said.
\n“What is the threat here? Or is the main threat Donald Trump’s abysmal polling numbers?” Hartl asked. “This is performative and it’s red meat being thrown to the far-right and industry.”
\nOnly about 51 Rice’s whales remain, and they and other wildlife are largely on the brink of extinction because of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill, which devastated the gulf when it leaked about 210m gallons.
\nThe squad, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, includes seven federal agency leaders, who, in the rare instances in which a federal action of significant public or economic interest comes into “irresolvable conflict” with the ESA, each vote on whether the project’s benefits outweigh the protected species’ wellbeing.
\nIf five of the seven votes are in favor of a project proceeding, it moves forward, which could drive species to extinction. It convenes on 31 March.
\nAmong other actions, the “God squad” is proposing to override a National Marine Fisheries Service requirement for the oil and gas industry to drive ships at safe speeds in the eastern gulf and monitor the location of whales to avoid strikes and deaths.
\nPete Hegseth, secretary of defense, is requesting to exempt all oil and gas industry activities in the Gulf of Mexico from the ESA, though the military and industry has not proposed a specific project, or cited a conflict.
\n“No one is asking for this,” Hartl said.
\nThe administration is also attempting to exempt itself and Hegseth from following clear, specific protocol laid out in the ESA, again citing national security threats as justification.
\nThe statute requires the committee’s documents and meetings to be open to the public. It has withheld public documents requested by the Center for Biological Diversity, Hartl said. Its allegedly open meeting was livestreamed, but not open to the public, the center states in its lawsuit.
\nThe “God squad” has only been convened three times, and the only project on which it overrode the ESA was a dam, but the plans included meaningful provisions that helped at-risk cranes survive. Andrew Bowman, president of the Defenders of Wildlife advocacy group, said no administration from either party has attempted to avoid the protocols as Hegseth has.
\n“Hegseth’s posturing that our national security somehow requires risking the extinction of the gulf’s threatened and endangered species by ignoring the ESA’s requirements is breathtaking in its utter contempt for America’s national wildlife heritage – and the rule of law,” Bowman said in a statement.
\nEven if Hegseth and the administration followed the protocol, it is unclear whether lowering gas prices fits with the spirit of the law, Hartl said. He noted that Congress included a military exemption when passing the ESA, but lawmakers at the time made clear it was intended to apply to military exercises or drills.
\nThe Center for Biological Diversity’s first suit was argued on Friday during an emergency hearing, and a judge has yet to rule. The suit focuses on the administration’s failure to follow protocol.
\nThe administration could very easily follow the protocol and again file for an exemption within a few days, Hartl said. If it does, then the Center for Biological Diversity will probably relitigate, and argue against the use of gas prices as an exemption justification.
\n“It’s tragic that the Rice’s whale, which has lived in this planet’s oceans for millions of years, could now go extinct because of a small man’s petty indifference,” Hartl said.
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\nThe analysis coincided with the introduction of California legislation that would by 2035 fully ban Pfas from being used as active ingredients in pesticides, and require warning labels and other restrictions in the meantime.
\nThe Environmental Working Group (EWG) non-profit conducted the analysis of California department of pesticide regulation residue testing records. It found about 90% of peaches, plums and nectarines contained Pfas residues, while 80% of strawberries and grapes showed them. Those levels are especially alarming because children commonly eat fruits like grapes and strawberries, and children are most at risk from the chemicals’ toxic effects, said Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice-president of EWG’s California operations.
\n“Most consumers don’t expect to find Pfas ‘forever chemicals’ on their strawberries – I think this information is shocking to most people,” Del Chiaro added.
\nPfas are a class of at least 16,000 compounds typically used to make common products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and accumulate, and are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems.
\nAdvocates began sounding the alarm over Pfas in pesticides in 2023. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Joe Biden attempted to discredit the author of one study that identified the chemicals in pesticides, while, under Donald Trump, the EPA has increased the number of Pfas proposed for use on crops.
\nAt least 60% of active ingredients federally approved to be used in common pesticides in recent years fit the most widely accepted definition of Pfas, a 2023 analysis of EPA data found. The chemicals are added as an active ingredient to crop pesticides to kill weeds or pests.
\nEWG analyzed records for 930 samples across 78 types of non-organic, California-grown fruits and vegetables.
\nIt found 348 samples, or 37%, showed Pfas residues. About 40 individual types of fruits and vegetables contained residues, meaning at least half of all produce varieties were treated with Pfas pesticides.
\nThe chemicals are not just a problem for food – they persist in the environment and pollute drinking water supplies. The city of Fresno, in an agricultural region, recently sued Pfas makers over pollution of groundwater, which exceeded federal limits by 600%. The contamination impacts more than 120,000 homes.
\nA previous EWG analysis of state records found 2.5m pounds of Pfas are spread on California cropland annually.
\n“Here’s a chemical that we in society at large are trying to get out of our environment and drinking water … and yet here on the flip side there is a regulatory agency permitting its use on crops,” Del Chiaro said.
\nThe health impacts are largely unclear because Pfas pesticides are a relatively new issue to researchers, and little data beyond that produced by industry exists.
\n“We know that Pfas can be dangerous, we know that pesticides can be dangerous, but we don’t really know enough about this new understudied exposure route,” said Varun Subramaniam, a report co-author and analyst with EWG.
\nHe noted that the produce may contain more than one kind of Pfas pesticide. Ten products are approved for use on strawberries, but the regulatory system only accounts for the risks of one pesticide, even though that is not how people are typically exposed.
\n“We know people are exposed to cocktails of pesticides and literature shows that these combinations can often be more harmful, so that’s a blind spot for the EPA at the moment,” Subramaniam said.
\nThe proposed legislation in California would ban the use of Pfas as an active ingredient in pesticides by 2035. By 2030, the 23 Pfas pesticides that are already banned by the European Union, but still used in the US, would also be banned in California. The bill would also place a moratorium on approvals of new Pfas pesticides, and require labels to warn farmers, who advocates say often do not know their pesticides contain Pfas.
\nThe pesticide industry will almost certainly mount a ferocious campaign against the legislation. Maine and Minnesota have already passed similar bans, making it more likely to pass in California. Though the state often leads in new environmental protections, Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and a frontrunning potential candidate for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president, is susceptible to industry influence, especially on Pfas legislation.
\nIn December, the California legislature by a wide margin passed a bill that would have banned Pfas in cookware and other everyday products, but Newsom vetoed it after receiving pressure from the cookware industry and celebrity chefs. He has so far not said anything about the pesticide legislation.
\nThe bill’s author, California assemblymember Nick Schultz, said in a statement that he doesn’t want his kids “eating strawberries contaminated with chemicals that will stay in their bodies for decades”.
\n“We are providing a clear, responsible road map for our farmers to transition away from these persistent chemicals while re-establishing California as a global leader in food safety,” Schultz added.
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Photograph: Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images","credit":"Justin Sullivan/Getty Images","altText":"Boxes of California grown strawberries","cleanCaption":"Boxes of California-grown strawberries are stacked up at a farmers market on 13 June 2012 in San Francisco, California.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images"},"campaigns":[],"designType":"Article","palette":{"background":"#00000000","mediaIcon":"#00000000","pillar":"#C70000","main":"#C70000","secondary":"#FF4E36","headline":"#121212","commentCount":"#707070","metaText":"#707070","elementBackground":"#FF4E36","shadow":"#DCDCDC","immersiveKicker":"#FF4E36","topBorder":"#DCDCDC","mediaBackground":"#EDEDED","pill":"#EDEDED","accentColour":"#C70000","kickerText":"#C70000","kickerColours":{"plainKickerText":"#C70000","plainPill":"#EDEDED","liveKickerText":"#F6F6F6","livePill":"#C70000","featureKickerText":"#FFF4F2","featurePill":"#EDEDED","featureLiveKickerText":"#EDEDED","featureLivePill":"#AB0613"},"mediaPillBackground":"#121212","mediaPillForeground":"#FFFFFF","featureAccentColour":"#FFF4F2"},"atoms":[]},"trailText":"Peaches, strawberries and grapes were almost always found to be contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’ in the analysis","showQuotedHeadline":false,"showLiveIndicator":false,"sublinks":[],"mainImage":{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/62e9592f6637b821c919e9edc1d7050be0777fd7/244_0_2511_2010/master/2511.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=c207eb8c40cfc476c50827389d192b07","height":2010,"width":2511,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Justin Sullivan/Getty Images","altText":"Boxes of California grown strawberries","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images"},"renderedItemProd":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/29/pfas-residue-california-produce-analysis?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemBeta":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/29/pfas-residue-california-produce-analysis?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemDebug":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/29/pfas-residue-california-produce-analysis?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"cardDesignType":"Article","correspondingTags":[],"type":"Article","importance":0},{"title":"House Republicans are ‘the only thing standing’ in the way of ending DHS shutdown, Hakeem Jeffries says – as it happened","rawTitle":"House Republicans are ‘the only thing standing’ in the way of ending DHS shutdown, Hakeem Jeffries says – as it happened","item":{"trailText":"This live blog is now closed.","liveContent":{"liveBloggingNow":false,"summary":{"id":"block-69c734708f084d6bedab58db","title":"Closing summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-28T02:02:34Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-28T02:02:33Z","body":"This brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close. Thanks for reading, and here are some of the latest developments:
\nDonald Trump signed an executive order Friday instructing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents as the partial shutdown drags on. Negotiations on Capitol Hill remain stalled after House Republicans rejected a Senate‑passed deal to fund key DHS subagencies, including the TSA. More here.
\nHouse Republicans have rejected legislation, passed by the Senate, that would finance most of DHS but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The move imperils efforts to end a 42‑day partial government shutdown that has seen thousands of DHS employees miss paychecks and furious travelers miss flights due to long airport security lines. More here.
\nHouse minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by Democratic whip Katherine Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar, told reporters that he and his colleagues back the bill passed by the Senate to fund most of the department of homeland security, noting that House Republicans are “the only thing standing” in the way of ending the chaos at airports nationwide. “House Democrats are prepared to support the bill to end the Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jeffries.
\nIran-linked hackers have broken into the personal email inbox of Kash Patel, FBI’s director, publishing photographs of him and other documents on the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. More here.
\nWashington expects its operation against Iran to conclude in “weeks, not months”, the US secretary of state has said, despite continuing violence across the region and a threat from Israel to “escalate and expand” its attacks against the Islamic republic. “When we are done with them here in the next couple weeks, they will be weaker than they’ve been in recent history,” Marco Rubio told reporters on Friday after meeting G7 foreign ministers in France. More here.
\nThis brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close. Thanks for reading, and here are some of the latest developments:
\nDonald Trump signed an executive order Friday instructing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents as the partial shutdown drags on. Negotiations on Capitol Hill remain stalled after House Republicans rejected a Senate‑passed deal to fund key DHS subagencies, including the TSA. More here.
\nHouse Republicans have rejected legislation, passed by the Senate, that would finance most of DHS but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The move imperils efforts to end a 42‑day partial government shutdown that has seen thousands of DHS employees miss paychecks and furious travelers miss flights due to long airport security lines. More here.
\nHouse minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by Democratic whip Katherine Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar, told reporters that he and his colleagues back the bill passed by the Senate to fund most of the department of homeland security, noting that House Republicans are “the only thing standing” in the way of ending the chaos at airports nationwide. “House Democrats are prepared to support the bill to end the Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jeffries.
\nIran-linked hackers have broken into the personal email inbox of Kash Patel, FBI’s director, publishing photographs of him and other documents on the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. More here.
\nWashington expects its operation against Iran to conclude in “weeks, not months”, the US secretary of state has said, despite continuing violence across the region and a threat from Israel to “escalate and expand” its attacks against the Islamic republic. “When we are done with them here in the next couple weeks, they will be weaker than they’ve been in recent history,” Marco Rubio told reporters on Friday after meeting G7 foreign ministers in France. More here.
\nThe actor Jane Fonda joined journalists, musicians and writers outside Washington’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in urging US citizens to “break your silence” and “stand tall against authoritarianism”.
\nAt a damp but defiant rally hosted by Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment on Friday, around a hundred invited guests gathered to hear speakers and singers rail against book bans, political censorship and other threats to free speech under Donald Trump.
\n“Today, books are being banned, plaques and monuments depicting historical events this administration wants to forget are being removed,” Fonda said from a stage under a grey, rainy sky. “Museums, the National Endowment for the Arts, state arts councils, public broadcasting – they’re all being defunded.”
\n![\"Jane](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/84e1714005483e12b4dcb9b717fc01862b540def/0_0_5000_3335/1000.jpg\")
\n The choice of the Kennedy Center as a backdrop was pointed: the US president has seized control of the national arts complex, targeted so-called “woke” programming, had his name added to its marble facade and announced that it will close for two years of renovations. Dozens of layoffs began this week.
\nFonda observed: “This beloved citadel of the arts has become a symbol of what is happening. The centre has been effectively silenced after artists refused to bow to ideological demands and the racist erasure of history.
\nRead the full story here:
\n","cleanBody":"The actor Jane Fonda joined journalists, musicians and writers outside Washington’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in urging US citizens to “break your silence” and “stand tall against authoritarianism”. At a damp but defiant rally hosted by Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment on Friday, around a hundred invited guests gathered to hear speakers and singers rail against book bans, political censorship and other threats to free speech under Donald Trump. “Today, books are being banned, plaques and monuments depicting historical events this administration wants to forget are being removed,” Fonda said from a stage under a grey, rainy sky. “Museums, the National Endowment for the Arts, state arts councils, public broadcasting – they’re all being defunded.”\nThe choice of the Kennedy Center as a backdrop was pointed: the US president has seized control of the national arts complex, targeted so-called “woke” programming, had his name added to its marble facade and announced that it will close for two years of renovations. Dozens of layoffs began this week. Fonda observed: “This beloved citadel of the arts has become a symbol of what is happening. The centre has been effectively silenced after artists refused to bow to ideological demands and the racist erasure of history. Read the full story here:","postType":"blog","contributors":["davidsmith"]},{"id":"block-69c71d7e8f084d6bedab5871","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-28T00:21:51Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-28T00:21:50Z","body":"Further delays are expected at DC area airports after a ground stop was issued amid an issue at a main air traffic control facility, according to an alert by the Federal Aviation Administration.
\nThe FAA issued the alert on Friday evening, citing the reason as an “environmental” problem at the Potomac Consolidated TRACON, which controls the airspace over Andrews, BWI, Ronald Reagan, Dulles, Richmond and other airports. The stops for Dulles and BWI have since been lifted, but remain in place for DCA.
\nReuters is reporting that an odor was detected at the air traffic control tower, which is located in Virginia.
","cleanBody":"Further delays are expected at DC area airports after a ground stop was issued amid an issue at a main air traffic control facility, according to an alert by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA issued the alert on Friday evening, citing the reason as an “environmental” problem at the Potomac Consolidated TRACON, which controls the airspace over Andrews, BWI, Ronald Reagan, Dulles, Richmond and other airports. The stops for Dulles and BWI have since been lifted, but remain in place for DCA. Reuters is reporting that an odor was detected at the air traffic control tower, which is located in Virginia.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c716848f08a9060e5ebe8d","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T23:59:10Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T23:59:09Z","body":"Politico reported that the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, has been hospitalized at least twice for stress-related issues over the past seven months.
\nThe stress stemmed from carrying out Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, which led to hospitalizations in September and December, according to the outlet, which cited two current and two former administration officials.
\nPolitico’s sources said that they saw Lyons “break out into a full sweat, with his face turning deep red,” according to the report. Sources also told Politico that Stephen Miller yelled at Lyons during daily morning phone calls, which was partially to blame for the stress.
\nIn a statement to Politico, Lyons said that his stress was not related to other Trump officials, and he did not address the two alleged hospitalizations.
","cleanBody":"Politico reported that the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, has been hospitalized at least twice for stress-related issues over the past seven months. The stress stemmed from carrying out Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, which led to hospitalizations in September and December, according to the outlet, which cited two current and two former administration officials. Politico’s sources said that they saw Lyons “break out into a full sweat, with his face turning deep red,” according to the report. Sources also told Politico that Stephen Miller yelled at Lyons during daily morning phone calls, which was partially to blame for the stress. In a statement to Politico, Lyons said that his stress was not related to other Trump officials, and he did not address the two alleged hospitalizations.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c70d3a8f084d6bedab5842","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T23:29:48Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T23:29:48Z","body":"It looks like TMZ’s callout for photos of US lawmakers boarding planes during the partial government shutdown is working, just as they head out for a two-week Easter recess.
\n“If anybody goes to Disney World with their family for spring break or goes to a beach somewhere or anywhere on vacation, and you see one of the 535 members of Congress, take a picture and send it to us at TMZ,” requested TMZ’s executive producer Harvey Levin in a video posted on social media on Thursday.
\nToday, TMZ posted a picture of Texas senator Ted Cruz on board a plane departing Washington DC. The outlet also shared a video from Fox News of Senate majority leader John Thune, seen at the Reagan National Airport in the nation’s capital. TMZ also posted a video of senator Marsha Blackburn walking through Reagan National Airport on Thursday night.
\nLawmakers are departing as the House prepares to vote around 10:30 pm ET tonight on legislation to fund the department of homeland security through 22 May.
","cleanBody":"It looks like TMZ’s callout for photos of US lawmakers boarding planes during the partial government shutdown is working, just as they head out for a two-week Easter recess. “If anybody goes to Disney World with their family for spring break or goes to a beach somewhere or anywhere on vacation, and you see one of the 535 members of Congress, take a picture and send it to us at TMZ,” requested TMZ’s executive producer Harvey Levin in a video posted on social media on Thursday. Today, TMZ posted a picture of Texas senator Ted Cruz on board a plane departing Washington DC. The outlet also shared a video from Fox News of Senate majority leader John Thune, seen at the Reagan National Airport in the nation’s capital. TMZ also posted a video of senator Marsha Blackburn walking through Reagan National Airport on Thursday night. Lawmakers are departing as the House prepares to vote around 10:30 pm ET tonight on legislation to fund the department of homeland security through 22 May.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c709c88f08a9060e5ebe44","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:51:51Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:51:50Z","body":"At a major Saudi investment conference in Miami, President Donald Trump recommended that investors bet big on artificial intelligence.
\n“The one that they’re going crazy about is AI,” he said during a Q&A session. “If you want to say one thing, AI, and just hope that it works.”
\nOn a question related to Africa, Trump pointed to the region’s “tremendous potential.”
\n“It’s got tremendous Earth. It’s got tremendous value underground,” he said. “Africa has tremendous value in its land, and if they can unify and get together, I think it’s got tremendous potential.”
","cleanBody":"At a major Saudi investment conference in Miami, President Donald Trump recommended that investors bet big on artificial intelligence. “The one that they’re going crazy about is AI,” he said during a Q&A session. “If you want to say one thing, AI, and just hope that it works.” On a question related to Africa, Trump pointed to the region’s “tremendous potential.” “It’s got tremendous Earth. It’s got tremendous value underground,” he said. “Africa has tremendous value in its land, and if they can unify and get together, I think it’s got tremendous potential.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c700348f086b26b5ba194d","title":"Trump: 'Cuba is next'","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:11:52Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:20:58Z","body":"During a speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump pointed to his administration’s military intervention in Venezuela earlier this year and said: “Cuba is next, by the way. But pretend I didn’t say that.”
\nHere’s a video of that moment, posted by journalist Aaron Rupar.
","cleanBody":"During a speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump pointed to his administration’s military intervention in Venezuela earlier this year and said: “Cuba is next, by the way. But pretend I didn’t say that.” Here’s a video of that moment, posted by journalist Aaron Rupar.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c6fb0b8f086b26b5ba1919","title":"Iran has to 'open up strait of Trump - I mean, Hormuz', says US president","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T21:54:33Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:15:37Z","body":"Concerning the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, President Trump demanded that Iran “open it up” before he referred to the waterway as the “strait of Trump.”
\n“We’re negotiating now,” Trump said. “But they have to open it up. They have to open up the strait of Trump. I mean Hormuz. Yes, excuse me. I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake. The fake news will say ‘he accidentally said’. There’s no accidents with me.”
","cleanBody":"Concerning the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, President Trump demanded that Iran “open it up” before he referred to the waterway as the “strait of Trump.” “We’re negotiating now,” Trump said. “But they have to open it up. They have to open up the strait of Trump. I mean Hormuz. Yes, excuse me. I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake. The fake news will say ‘he accidentally said’. There’s no accidents with me.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c6f92c8f086b26b5ba1910","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T21:44:11Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T21:44:10Z","body":"President Trump is delivering remarks at the Future Investment Initiative, a Saudi business conference in Miami. It’s his second time addressing the conference.
\nHe began by praising the US military, and called Iran a “bully” that was participating in “nuclear blackmail.”
\n“We’re closer than ever to the rise of the Middle East that is finally free, at last, from Iranian terror aggression and nuclear blackmail,” he said. “For 47 years, Iran has been known as the bully of the Middle East, but they are not the bully any longer.”
\nJust a reminder: My colleague Lucy Campbell is covering the latest developments in the Middle East for The Guardian’s live blog.
\n","cleanBody":"President Trump is delivering remarks at the Future Investment Initiative, a Saudi business conference in Miami. It’s his second time addressing the conference. He began by praising the US military, and called Iran a “bully” that was participating in “nuclear blackmail.” “We’re closer than ever to the rise of the Middle East that is finally free, at last, from Iranian terror aggression and nuclear blackmail,” he said. “For 47 years, Iran has been known as the bully of the Middle East, but they are not the bully any longer.” Just a reminder: My colleague Lucy Campbell is covering the latest developments in the Middle East for The Guardian’s live blog.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c6f7a08f08a9060e5ebdc8","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T21:34:35Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T21:34:35Z","body":"Democrats have accused Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr of using his agency’s powers to target personalities and programs who oppose Donald Trump. In a speech to CPAC, he did not entirely deny the charge.
\n“When the Democrats were in charge of the FCC, they did not apply the law in an even-handed way,” Carr told the annual gathering of conservatives held this year in Grapevine, Texas.
\n“They weaponized it, and what I think we should do is not weaponize it, but also not just sit on our hands. We should take the authorities we have and apply it in a fair and even handed way, and we’re doing it.”
\nCarr’s approach to the FCC’s authorities exploded into the public eye last September, when he pressured television stations to “take action” against Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made about murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel was temporarily taken off the air, leading to complaints from Democrats, as well as a handful of Republicans, that Carr was advocating censorship.
\nCarr touched briefly on that episode in his speech to CPAC, describing it as a moment where local broadcasters acted as a check on media firms Comcast and Disney.
\n“You saw that in the instance with Jimmy Kimmel ... you had local TV stations for the first time push back and say, ‘We don’t want to run that program in our community.’”
\nHe also cheered instances of conservatives gaining influence in media firms, calling them evidence that Trump was “winning”.
\n“PBS: defunded. NPR: defunded. Joy Reid gone from MSNBC, sleepy eyes Chuck Todd gone, Jim Acosta gone, John Dickerson gone, [Stephen] Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN has got new ownership as well,” Carr said.
\n“We’re not on the point yet of raising the mission accomplished flag, but President Trump is taking on the fake news media, and President Trump is winning.”
","cleanBody":"Democrats have accused Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr of using his agency’s powers to target personalities and programs who oppose Donald Trump. In a speech to CPAC, he did not entirely deny the charge. “When the Democrats were in charge of the FCC, they did not apply the law in an even-handed way,” Carr told the annual gathering of conservatives held this year in Grapevine, Texas. “They weaponized it, and what I think we should do is not weaponize it, but also not just sit on our hands. We should take the authorities we have and apply it in a fair and even handed way, and we’re doing it.” Carr’s approach to the FCC’s authorities exploded into the public eye last September, when he pressured television stations to “take action” against Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made about murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel was temporarily taken off the air, leading to complaints from Democrats, as well as a handful of Republicans, that Carr was advocating censorship. Carr touched briefly on that episode in his speech to CPAC, describing it as a moment where local broadcasters acted as a check on media firms Comcast and Disney. “You saw that in the instance with Jimmy Kimmel ... you had local TV stations for the first time push back and say, ‘We don’t want to run that program in our community.’” He also cheered instances of conservatives gaining influence in media firms, calling them evidence that Trump was “winning”. “PBS: defunded. NPR: defunded. Joy Reid gone from MSNBC, sleepy eyes Chuck Todd gone, Jim Acosta gone, John Dickerson gone, [Stephen] Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN has got new ownership as well,” Carr said. “We’re not on the point yet of raising the mission accomplished flag, but President Trump is taking on the fake news media, and President Trump is winning.”","postType":"blog","contributors":["chris-stein"]}],"keyEvents":[{"id":"block-69c6db3c8f086b26b5ba1835","title":"A gold tractor on the White House lawn brought Trump up short","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T19:38:48Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T19:41:42Z","body":"Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump addressed farmers from the White House and was distracted by the presence of a gold tractor on the White House south lawn.
\n“I assume it’s a gift to me,” said Trump, who has decorated much of the interior of the White House with ostentatious gold fittings.
\nYet even Trump seemed to find the gesture excessive, exclaiming: “That’s crazy. That’s really something. Thank you very much for the gift. I really appreciate it. Can you imagine if I accepted that gift, what they would do? A Democrat would accept.”
\n![\"A](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/9bc2c5f7a57834eddbad54ea2ae4ebe49145aaa0/480_0_3750_3000/1000.jpg\")
\n The divide on the right over Donald Trumps’ decision to go to war with Iran was on stark display at the Conservative Political Action Conference during a panel focused on the military that included the former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, the Guardian’s Chris Stein writes.
\n“I counseled as loud as possible against doing this in the first place. We face a extremely difficult challenge,” Prince said.
\n“I don’t share the optimism of the administration that there’s going to be a peaceful stop to this. They will burn it down.”
\nHe warned that, if Trump attempts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by ordering a ground invasion, “you will see imagery of burning American warships in the next couple of weeks. And I don’t think people are really prepared for that.”
\nOthers on the panel characterized the war as something that was best seen through.
\n“The American people have to understand we can’t stop now that we’ve started,” said Jason Redman, a former Navy Seal who was wounded in combat in Iraq.
\n“I fought 21 years and almost sacrificed my life and sacrificed the lives of friends of mine against terrorism so that hopefully my kids would never have to take that fight against terrorism. I have my first grandchild coming. I don’t want my grandchild to have to fight Iran in 20 years.”
","cleanBody":"The divide on the right over Donald Trumps’ decision to go to war with Iran was on stark display at the Conservative Political Action Conference during a panel focused on the military that included the former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, the Guardian’s Chris Stein writes. “I counseled as loud as possible against doing this in the first place. We face a extremely difficult challenge,” Prince said. “I don’t share the optimism of the administration that there’s going to be a peaceful stop to this. They will burn it down.” He warned that, if Trump attempts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by ordering a ground invasion, “you will see imagery of burning American warships in the next couple of weeks. And I don’t think people are really prepared for that.” Others on the panel characterized the war as something that was best seen through. “The American people have to understand we can’t stop now that we’ve started,” said Jason Redman, a former Navy Seal who was wounded in combat in Iraq. “I fought 21 years and almost sacrificed my life and sacrificed the lives of friends of mine against terrorism so that hopefully my kids would never have to take that fight against terrorism. I have my first grandchild coming. I don’t want my grandchild to have to fight Iran in 20 years.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":["chris-stein"]},{"id":"block-69c6e0788f084d6bedab570e","title":"The day so far: the DHS funding fight in Washington","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T19:59:51Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T20:09:05Z","body":"House Republicans have formally rejected the Senate’s compromise deal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including the TSA.
\nSpeaker Mike Johnson, in announcing the rejection said, “this gambit that was done last night is a joke” of the Senate-passed bill that made its way to the House in the predawn hours.
\nJohnson also announced that House Republicans are instead going to put forward a stopgap spending bill to fund the entire DHS at current levels for two months.
\nHowever, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has already said that the House’s stopgap funding measure is “dead on arrival” in the chamber. Senators are also on a two-week recess, so there is little hope of another deal passing quickly in Congress.
\nAmid the tumult on Capitol Hill and airports nationwide, the DHS says TSA workers will start seeing paychecks as early as Monday.
\nMore than 3,450 TSA officers nationally, nearly 12% of the workforce, had called off work by Thursday. At least 510 had quit. TSA officers have not been paid since mid-February due to the partial DHS shutdown.
\nHouse minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by Democratic whip Katherine Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar, told reporters on Friday that he and his colleagues back the bill passed by the Senate to fund most of the department of homeland security, noting that House Republicans are “the only thing standing” in the way of ending the chaos at airports nationwide.
\n“House Democrats are prepared to support the bill to end the Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jeffries.
\nHis remarks come shortly after House speaker Mike Johnson rejected the Senate-passed DHS funding bill, calling it “a joke.”
\n“None of this is a joke,” Clark said. “All of this has real-world consequences for American families.”
","cleanBody":"House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by Democratic whip Katherine Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar, told reporters on Friday that he and his colleagues back the bill passed by the Senate to fund most of the department of homeland security, noting that House Republicans are “the only thing standing” in the way of ending the chaos at airports nationwide. “House Democrats are prepared to support the bill to end the Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jeffries. His remarks come shortly after House speaker Mike Johnson rejected the Senate-passed DHS funding bill, calling it “a joke.” “None of this is a joke,” Clark said. “All of this has real-world consequences for American families.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c6fb0b8f086b26b5ba1919","title":"Iran has to 'open up strait of Trump - I mean, Hormuz', says US president","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T21:54:33Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:15:37Z","body":"Concerning the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, President Trump demanded that Iran “open it up” before he referred to the waterway as the “strait of Trump.”
\n“We’re negotiating now,” Trump said. “But they have to open it up. They have to open up the strait of Trump. I mean Hormuz. Yes, excuse me. I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake. The fake news will say ‘he accidentally said’. There’s no accidents with me.”
","cleanBody":"Concerning the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, President Trump demanded that Iran “open it up” before he referred to the waterway as the “strait of Trump.” “We’re negotiating now,” Trump said. “But they have to open it up. They have to open up the strait of Trump. I mean Hormuz. Yes, excuse me. I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake. The fake news will say ‘he accidentally said’. There’s no accidents with me.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c700348f086b26b5ba194d","title":"Trump: 'Cuba is next'","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:11:52Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-27T22:20:58Z","body":"During a speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump pointed to his administration’s military intervention in Venezuela earlier this year and said: “Cuba is next, by the way. But pretend I didn’t say that.”
\nHere’s a video of that moment, posted by journalist Aaron Rupar.
","cleanBody":"During a speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump pointed to his administration’s military intervention in Venezuela earlier this year and said: “Cuba is next, by the way. But pretend I didn’t say that.” Here’s a video of that moment, posted by journalist Aaron Rupar.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69c734708f084d6bedab58db","title":"Closing summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-28T02:02:34Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-28T02:02:33Z","body":"This brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close. Thanks for reading, and here are some of the latest developments:
\nDonald Trump signed an executive order Friday instructing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents as the partial shutdown drags on. Negotiations on Capitol Hill remain stalled after House Republicans rejected a Senate‑passed deal to fund key DHS subagencies, including the TSA. More here.
\nHouse Republicans have rejected legislation, passed by the Senate, that would finance most of DHS but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The move imperils efforts to end a 42‑day partial government shutdown that has seen thousands of DHS employees miss paychecks and furious travelers miss flights due to long airport security lines. More here.
\nHouse minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by Democratic whip Katherine Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar, told reporters that he and his colleagues back the bill passed by the Senate to fund most of the department of homeland security, noting that House Republicans are “the only thing standing” in the way of ending the chaos at airports nationwide. “House Democrats are prepared to support the bill to end the Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jeffries.
\nIran-linked hackers have broken into the personal email inbox of Kash Patel, FBI’s director, publishing photographs of him and other documents on the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. More here.
\nWashington expects its operation against Iran to conclude in “weeks, not months”, the US secretary of state has said, despite continuing violence across the region and a threat from Israel to “escalate and expand” its attacks against the Islamic republic. “When we are done with them here in the next couple weeks, they will be weaker than they’ve been in recent history,” Marco Rubio told reporters on Friday after meeting G7 foreign ministers in France. More here.
\nThis live blog is now closed.
\nA new trove of chemical producer and US Environmental Protection Agency documents reveal an elaborate industry operation that killed strong regulations around formaldehyde, a highly toxic carcinogen widely used in everyday goods from cosmetics to furniture to craft supplies.
\nThe Biden EPA in late 2024 determined any exposure to formaldehyde increased the risk of cancer and other health problems. The Trump EPA in late 2025 moved to undo those findings and replace them with less protective figures.
\nThe newly released documents show the industry and the Trump EPA’s scientific justification for weakening the protections largely relied on, or aligned with, a small number of studies led by a chemical industry scientist, Rory Conolly, who argued that some exposure to formaldehyde is safe. The Conolly studies were funded by chemical trade groups. Between 2008 and 2024, the EPA had concluded the research was out of date or unreliable, documents show.
\nOnce the Trump administration took over the EPA, it changed formaldehyde risk levels to align with the level Conolly found was safe. It relied in part on his assessments, limited data from other researchers, or studies the EPA previously found to be out of date. Advocates say the documents show the Trump EPA often “cherrypicked” data.
\nThe documents, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a non-profit, also show an unusual three-day meeting in 2023 among the EPA and top formaldehyde producers, users and trade groups. Among the presenters was Conolly.
\nMuch of industry and the Trump EPA claims and justification were “based on what Conolly did”, said Maria Doa, a former EPA scientist now with EDF. The documents shine a light on the ferocity with which the powerful chemical lobby attacks regulations to protect its profits.
\n“The bottom line is money – and that they want limited regulations on the chemicals they are making,” Doa told the Guardian.
\nThe EPA said in a statement that it changed the levels because the “Biden Administration used flawed analyses in its risk assessment of formaldehyde”. The new assessment takes into account a wider range of views, and “strengthens protections by relying on gold standard science”, a spokesperson said.
\nChemical makers annually produce up to 5bn pounds of formaldehyde, a pungent colorless gas at room temperature. Companies add it to consumer products because it’s an effective preservative, binder, anti-fungal or it is used in glue.
\nThe industry has, for decades, waged an intense war against formaldehyde regulations. But the latest salvo is bigger than just formaldehyde, said Erik Olson, a senior adviser with the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund who has lobbied on toxic chemical issues.
\nThe EPA has established a pathway that could be used to re-evaluate and weaken regulations around every carcinogen, Olson said, and that could lead to a broad increase in the public’s exposure to toxic chemicals.
\n“We hear about making America healthy again, but here we have an example of the EPA undermining decades of understanding around a cancer-causing chemical for which there is no safe level of exposure,” Olson said.
\n“Watch out. There are a lot of other carcinogens that industry wants to pick off.”
\nThe EPA during the Biden years conducted a multiyear, systematic review of the latest formaldehyde science from its own researchers, independent scientists and some industry-affiliated labs. This was its justification for concluding that the safe level of exposure to formaldehyde via inhalation is zero.
\nThe Trump EPA replaced that finding with the claim that cancer only becomes a risk at a higher “threshold”. The Trump EPA and Conolly found that the threshold is 0.3 parts per million (ppm), the same level at which exposure to the formaldehyde causes sensory irritation. They claim protecting against irritation will also protect against cancer.
\nThat conclusion contradicts a much broader body of research that found cancer risk at a lower level than the irritation threshold.
\n“The whole thing is crazy,” Doa said.
\nConolly’s studies from over the last 20 years are repeatedly cited in industry documents obtained via Foia, and are indirectly referenced by the Trump EPA in its justification for the changes.
\nIn 2024, Conolly gave a presentation to the EPA science advisory committee on chemicals. SACC concluded that any level of exposure to formaldehyde increased cancer risk, though Conolly disagreed with the broader committee. In late 2025, the Trump EPA published in the Federal Register its proposed new rules that would reverse the Biden regulations. It wrote that “the majority of the information presented [by SACC]”, concluded the 0.3 ppm threshold was most appropriate, in part referencing Conolly’s work.
\nThe Trump EPA wrote: “.3 ppm is protective of effects for all durations, including cancer.” Doa said the EPA “cherrypicked” dissenting opinions, including Conolly’s.
\nThe newly released documents show the EPA previously found Conolly’s studies were out of date, or discredited them. The agency wrote in 2024 that his research contained “model uncertainties that were too large to use in risk assessments”.
\nIn a statement to the Guardian, Connolly said he was not “impressed” with the earlier EPA critiques, and that it did not appear that the agency thoroughly considered a 2023 update to his research that he said addressed their concerns.
\nConnolly said the Trump EPA’s changes to formaldehyde risk levels were “consistent with” his research and it is unclear which science was used to justify the changes.
\n“Yes, I agree that formaldehyde should be regulated along the lines of the current EPA position, but I do have to wonder how they got there,” Conolly said. The EPA also heavily relied on some human studies from as far back as 1987 to develop their threshold.
\nConolly’s early papers were funded by the Chemical Industry Institute of Technology, a trade group, while his 2023 paper was funded by the American Chemistry Council. The American Chemistry Council’s Julianne Ogden sent an email to the EPA shortly after the February 2023 meeting pushing industry’s argument that 0.3 ppm of formaldehyde in the air is safe.
\nConolly downplayed the influence on his findings, noting that he had worked for the military and academia.
\n“In evaluating science, what matters is the quality of the science,” Conolly said. “Saying that science is no good because it was industry-funded is a cop-out.”
\nThe same industry leaders carrying out the attack on the regulations in 2022-2024 took over the EPA in 2025, documents show. They quickly went to work dismantling the formaldehyde regulations.
\nAmong them are Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, former top American Chemistry Council officials now in leadership at the EPA chemical safety office. Dekleva also spent 32 years at DuPont.
\n“The [formaldehyde] regulatory changes are happening at Beck and Dekleva’s direction, with their direct oversight and supervision, and with their approval of the final language,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist now with the Public Employees for Responsibility non-profit. It works with whistleblowers and EPA employees to expose agency wrongdoing.
\nThe industry attacks focused on two key pieces of science underpinning the strong formaldehyde regulations.
\nThe EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (Iris) is the office that determined that no level of exposure to formaldehyde is safe. Until the second Trump administration, Iris was among the most politically insulated offices in the EPA, Bennett said. It aims to do “pure science” that is not influenced by the political winds, Bennett added.
\nIris’s conclusions are reviewed by the National Academy of Science Engineering and Medicine (Nasem). Abraham Lincoln established Nasem to provide independent scientific guidance to federal agencies and to review their work. It is also politically insulated and composed of many of the nation’s foremost independent scientists, academics and industry players.
\nA Nasem committee wrote in 2024 that it “concurred” with Iris’s conclusion that no level of formaldehyde exposure was safe, finding it “appropriate and acceptable”. The EPA’s findings were “consistent with EPA’s state-of-practice methods”.
\nDocuments show many examples of the industry taking aim at Nasem’s and Iris’s findings. At the February 2023 meeting, the American Chemistry Council argued that there was robust scientific agreement that Iris’s assessment contained “deficiencies”.
\nThis directly contradicted what Nasem wrote, Doa said. And she found significant conflicts of interest in 11 of the 15 scientists industry cited in its presentation. Among them is Harvey Checkoway, who receives research funding from the American Chemistry Council, Aluminum Company of America, Dupont, Materion and Monsanto, among other industry clients.
\nCheckoway did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
\nIn other cases, the industry again “cherrypicked” data, Doa said, noting a 2022 Dekleva letter to the EPA, while Dekleva was still at the American Chemistry Council. It claimed Iris “implied” that .3 ppm was a safe level of exposure, which Doa said overtly contradicts Iris’s findings.
\nDekleva repeatedly cites in the letter Conolly’s 15-year-old science that the agency had since found was out of date or too uncertain. In its justification for undoing the rules that were published on the Federal Register, the Trump EPA wrote that it “revisited” the Iris assessment and is “no longer relying on the EPA IRIS”.
\nThe distortion of Nasem’s conclusion also appeared in the Federal Register and the EPA’s December 2025 announcement. It wrote that it had reviewed Nasem and other scientific bodies’ comments, and was “following their recommendations and focusing on the science”.
\nOlson is calling on Congress to investigate these types of issues and the broader industry takeover of the EPA.
\n“It sounds like insider baseball, but it has very real implications for people exposed to these chemicals and for people’s pocketbooks,” Olson said. “We’re going to pay for this through the nose for our taxes and insurance bills.”
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4k2z4","section":"Environment","id":"environment/2026/mar/27/trump-epa-cancer-rules-formaldehyde","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/21cf23c6b0a6d70821ca71b23266fe36ae796452/0_0_1500_1200/master/1500.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=7990d142d96160462dc33cc2b9bcd508","height":1200,"width":1500,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"The EPA under the Trump administration has weakened regulations around formaldehyde. Photograph: Composite: Getty Images, NurPhoto","credit":"Composite: Getty Images, NurPhoto","altText":"a composite image showing a flag for the Environmental Protection Agency on the left and a baby shark preserved in a jar of formaldehyde on the right","cleanCaption":"The EPA under the Trump administration has weakened regulations around formaldehyde.","cleanCredit":"Composite: Getty Images, NurPhoto"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Papers reveal how chemical lobby influenced policy, reversing Biden-era limits on a common carcinogen
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Allegations of antisemitism have cost people jobs, provided pretexts for censorship and fueled an unprecedented crackdown on protest over Israel and shows of support for Palestinian rights, especially at universities.
\nPro-Israel groups have filed hundreds of lawsuits or legal actions in an effort to silence some of this speech, with the vast majority filed since 2023 in response to the protest movement surrounding Israel’s recent war in Gaza. The most important rulings to have come out of these cases, experts say, have found that speech and slogans at the heart of the controversies are protected by the first amendment.
\nA number of the rulings also state that the speech at issue is not antisemitic and does not violate the civil rights of Jewish students. Together, those decisions are delivering a blow to pro-Israel groups’ legal campaign to shut down protests and criticism of Israel through the courts.
\n“The courts have said, ‘We agree, this is first amendment protected speech,” said Radhika Sainath, an attorney with Palestine Legal, which filed briefs in many of the cases. That, she continued, has resulted in “wins for Palestinian rights because they are starting to create a body of law”.
\n\nAmong long-debated phrases that courts have found are protected speech are phrases like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “globalize the intifada”.
\nSome judges have been unequivocal in their orders. “Plaintiffs are entitled to their own interpretive lens equating anti-Zionism (as they define it) and antisemitism. But it is another matter altogether to insist that others must be bound by plaintiffs’ view,” a first circuit court panel wrote in its dismissal of a lawsuit brought by pro-Israel groups and Jewish students against MIT.
\nHowever, the context in which the slogans are uttered is important, and some judges have allowed claims to move forward if the speech singled out individual students.
\nAlong with first amendment experts from the American Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union, Palestine Legal and a former US attorney, the Guardian reviewed key rulings issued through the end of 2025 that the experts said are shaping legal precedent. Those include five cases brought against universities under Title VI – the provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs that receive federal funds, as most universities do. During his first term, Trump expanded Title VI protections to Jewish students.
\nIn those cases, plaintiffs claimed that the universities had violated Jewish students’ civil rights by not doing enough to limit pro-Palestinian action. In all five rulings, judges largely found otherwise.
\nThe cases are “among the most prominent in public discussion about the intersection of Title VI hostile environment claims and the first amendment”, said Brian Hauss, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. “They will play an outsize role in shaping how courts, regulators and university officials understand the issue.”
\nMany of the orders are being appealed and other cases are ongoing, so any body of precedent is still in formation. Additionally, American universities have cracked down on pro-Palestinian protest even without the prospect of losing in court, in response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented pressure campaign to clamp down on progressive speech in higher education.
\nBut the rulings are a blow to a broader project to use the law to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech. The Trump administration has withheld billions of dollars in funding from universities on the grounds that they’re not doing enough under Title VI to protect students from antisemitism, a campaign that has also faced an uphill climb in court.
\nIn a lawsuit brought by Harvard against the administration over frozen funds, a judge ruled in September on the university’s behalf, writing that she found it “difficult to conclude anything other than that [the Trump administration] used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities”.
\nCritics have called the strategy of pro-Israel groups bringing such cases “lawfare” designed to silence criticism of Israel. Judges in the MIT case echoed that idea.
\nResponding to claims that “from the river to the sea” calls for the genocide of Jews, the panel that heard the MIT case wrote: “Plaintiffs must again rely on a theory that they can dictate the interpretation of the protestors’ speech in order to suppress it.” The MIT order is the only appeals court ruling on the issue since October 2023, which is significant in that it creates binding precedent.
\nSome of the claims were unlikely to ever succeed, legal experts said, but were mainly intended to chill protests. The Brandeis Center, a pro-Israel law firm that is leading some lawsuits, said its cases “showcase the litany of antisemitic conduct Jewish students and faculty are facing, and where we need courts, federal authorities and universities themselves to uphold laws protecting civil rights”.
\nPro-Israel advocates bringing these lawsuits have argued that Jewish identity is so entwined with Israel and Zionism that certain forms of criticism can amount to a civil rights or Title VI violation. The surge of lawsuits is broadly asking the courts to codify that theory.
\n“For the most part, courts have said that that doesn’t fly when we’re talking about expressly political speech that isn’t targeted at a specific person or group because of their ethnicity or national origin,” the ACLU’s Hauss said. “Impassioned views about Israel and Palestine, even if offensive to some, are broadly protected under the First Amendment.”
\nIn Landau v Corporation of Haverford College, Jewish students brought a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania college alleging it allowed an environment hostile to Jews to flourish on campus. The plaintiffs suggested in their complaint that people who wear keffiyehs support violent resistance against Israel, but judges dismissed the suggestion, calling keffiyehs a “classic example of first amendment expression”.
\nJudges in the MIT case opined on claims made by pro-Israel groups that common phrases, including that “the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor” or “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”, violate Jewish students’ civil rights. The judges found these are protected speech.
\n“We therefore reject plaintiffs’ claimed right to stifle anti-Zionist speech by labeling it inherently antisemitic,” the judges wrote.
\nHowever, context is important. Someone at Cooper Union wrote “from the river to the sea” on a bathroom stall door in the same font used on the cover of Mein Kampf. A judge in Gartenberg v Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art allowed that claim to move forward, noting the “use of distinctive lettering associated with Hitler’s manifesto” could constitute an act of intimidation. In another Title VI case brought by the Brandeis Center against UC Berkeley, a judge ruled that the case could proceed because that the center “plausibly alleges that Berkeley was deliberately indifferent to the on-campus harassment and hostile environment”. That case continues.
\nBut judges rejected claims from plaintiffs in the MIT case who alleged that “die ins”, disruptive walk outs during class, and other protests that violated campus rules violated Jewish students’ civil rights, ruling that the conduct was protected by the first amendment. “By gathering together in groups on campus, disrupting campus tranquility, and impeding travel for many students, the protestors did not render their speech antisemitic, much less unprotected,” the judges wrote.
\n\nThe judge in the Gartenberg case, however, found that one protest at Cooper Union could plausibly constitute a Title VI civil rights violation. During that protest, pro-Palestinian students chanted “free, free Palestine” while beating on the door of a library room in which several Jewish students had locked the door.
\n“That feels a little bit more threatening, and arguably is inciting imminent lawless action,” said Tim Heaphy, a former US attorney in the Obama administration and former general counsel for the University of Virginia. “But if it’s out on the public square, or a microphone on stage and there’s no single person being singled out – that’s probably protected. That’s where context comes in and matters.”
\nCooper Union and the plaintiffs settled in early January the claims that the judge allowed to move forward.
\nSome Title VI claims that universities did not do enough to shut down pro-Palestinian speech or criticism of Israel have been dismissed because plaintiffs weren’t able to show that their schools were “deliberately indifferent” to a hostile environment faced by Jewish students. However, schools named in the five suits had responded with some measures against the pro-Palestinian advocates, and took action to limit protests.
\nStill, the pro-Israel groups that brought the suits wanted the school leaders to go even further.
\nThat drew skepticism from some judges. In a lawsuit brought against the University of Pennsylvania, the judge’s summation captured much of the sentiment across the orders: “I could find no allegations that Penn or its administration has itself taken any actions or positions which, even when read in the most favorable light, could be interpreted as antisemitic with the intention of causing harm to the plaintiffs,” the judge wrote.
\n“At worst, plaintiffs accuse Penn of tolerating and permitting the expression of viewpoints which differ from their own.”
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\nBut in Michigan, where large populations of Arab Americans and Jews live near one another, the complexities of the situation can be difficult to grapple with – and few people had easy or quick answers on how to move forward.
\nIn some cases, emotions continue to run high: a pro-Israel state representative on Friday afternoon assailed on social media a Muslim politician who had expressed sadness over the incident.
\nThe Lebanese American suspect, Ayman Ghazali, a 41-year-old shawarma restaurant employee, appears to have carried out the attack in retribution for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killing of four of his relatives, including two small children, in an airstrike on their home during its ongoing invasion of Lebanon.
\nGhazali reportedly drove his truck through the doors of the Temple Israel synagogue and into a hallway, where he allegedly shot himself fatally after he was confronted by security. Explosives were found inside the truck, which caught fire. Community leaders expressed relief that there was only a minor injury beyond Ghazali’s own death.
\nTemple Israel is in West Bloomfield Township, a wealthy community a few miles north of Dearborn, the center of the region’s Lebanese American population.
\nCongregation T’chiyah Rabbi Alana Alpert said that everyone “deserves to walk safely down the streets of our neighborhoods and through the doors of our holy spaces”.
\n“Anytime someone blames or conflates all Jewish people – including kids at their school – with the state or government of Israel, that is dangerous and antisemitic, and it leads directly to violence against us,” she said. “And that includes when Trump or [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu do it.”
\nThe Jewish Federation of Detroit did not respond to a request for comment, but in a media statement the group said: “We remain steadfast in our commitment to vigilance and security, even as we continue to live proud, vibrant Jewish lives – at our temples and synagogues, in our schools, and throughout our Jewish organizations.”
\nBut some voices have linked the attack on the synagogue to the conflict in the Middle East and Israel’s actions.
\nJewish Voice for Peace Detroit’s Lex Eisenberg said they are “broken-hearted in the wake of a horrible attack”.
\n“It is increasingly clear that the Israeli government’s atrocities make all people, including Jews, less safe,” they added in an email. “The Israeli government carries out wars and genocide against families and children, and then [it] falsely claims these war crimes are done in the name of Jews. This leads to still more anti-semitism.”
\nMuch of the Lebanese American diaspora in south-east Michigan has its roots in southern Lebanon, where the IDF has forcibly displaced more than 800,000 people in southern Lebanon in recent weeks as it seeks to eliminate Hezbollah. Hezbollah operates outside the Lebanese government in the region and carries out attacks on Israel.
\nAmong other support for the Israeli military, the Temple Israel synagogue has hosted IDF soldiers, hosted an IDF recruiter (though he wasn’t recruiting at the synagogue), has held prayers for the IDF and has partnered with the Friends of the IDF, which fundraises to support the military.
\nRabbis for Ceasefire founder Alissa Wise said such an attack on Jews stemming from Middle East violence was her “worst fear”.
\n“On one hand, you want to say it’s a synagogue so it’s an antisemitic attack, but at the same time you understand that Israel deliberately conflates Jewishness with support for Israel’s actions, and you also have a synagogue that supports that project,” Wise said.
\nWise added: “How do we hold this complexity in a world like this and in a time like this?”
\nIn Dearborn and adjacent Dearborn Heights, many are shocked that a well-known community member from a popular sandwich shop, Hamido, carried out the attack. The area has been subjected to regular Islamophobic attacks and vitriol from rightwing groups in recent decades. It knows the pain of being targeted; Arab American mayors, imams and other leaders from across the region expressed support for Jewish residents.
\n“Jewish and Arab communities have always co-existed here in [south-east] Michigan, and the emphatic statements of solidarity I’m seeing from Arab American leaders of all faiths do not surprise me, given greater Detroit’s strong interfaith tradition,” Bilal Baydoun, a former city of Dearborn spokesperson, said.
\nA Dearborn community leader who declined to use their name said the attacks were “terrible” but added “so are the attacks that are killing our families and friends in Lebanon.
\n“Where is the sympathy and outrage over that?”
\nIt is that layer that makes the situation so difficult for many, though they and other community leaders stressed that there is little animosity among Arab American and Jewish residents in Michigan; nor are Israel’s actions justification for violence here.
\n“The unjustified Israeli attack on civilians in Iran and Lebanon gives no blank check to anyone attacking synagogues, civilians and peaceful communities,” Dearborn imam Hassan Qazwini told the Detroit Free Press on Friday.
\nOne notable exception to the calls for civility in the terrorist attack’s wake was pro-Israel Michigan state representative Noah Arbit’s taking rhetorical aim at Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official who is running for the US Senate. El-Sayed has long been critical of Israel’s attacks in Gaza – which have been roundly condemned internationally – and called for a halt to all foreign military aid, including to Israel.
\nEl-Sayed wrote on X that he was “horrified and heartbroken” in the hours after the Temple Israel attack. Later, in a video, El-Sayed said Ghazali’s actions, Israeli strikes on Lebanon and the Iran war are part of a cycle of violence that must come to an end.
\nHe added that conflating the Temple Israel congregation with the Israeli government amounts to antisemitism.
\n“One can have righteous anger with the state of Israel while expressing solidarity with the Jewish people, including Jewish people in Israel,” El-Sayed said in the video.
\nArbit took to X to excoriate El-Sayed on Friday.
\n“Amazed by the crocodile tears from someone who’s done more than most to stoke & inflame hatred against Jews,” Arbit wrote. Invoking an acronym for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he added: “It’s a very small logical leap from ‘AIPAC controls the US government,’ ‘Israel is committing genocide,’ ‘Zionists kill Arab babies’ to ‘kill Jews in West Bloomfield.’”
\nEl-Sayed did not respond to the comment.
\nHowever, more broadly, many hope that the tragedy can be an impetus for change. Wise said many pro-Israel, mainstream synagogues have “strong red lines” against speaking with antiwar or pro-Palestinian Jewish groups such as Rabbis for Ceasefire. Wise said she is hopeful the tragedy can bring groups together.
\n“Sometimes fear and grief and pain can open our hearts,” Wise said. “And I hope that can be the case if it will force people who have been unwilling to sit at the same table to do so.”
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\nTesting of umbilical cord blood typically looks for a small number of common Pfas compounds, like Pfoa and Pfos. However, thousands of Pfas exist, and a new Mount Sinai study tested 120 umbilical blood cord samples that were previously found to contain up to four compounds.
\nThe expanded “non-targeted analysis” identified 42 Pfas compounds across the 120 samples, and the total level of Pfas in the blood was much higher than previously found.
\nThe findings suggest “babies are exposed to many more Pfas than we previously thought”, said Shelley Liu, a study co-author and associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
\n“It’s particularly important to understand because it is a very vulnerable period when fetuses are exposed,” Liu added.
\nPfas are a class of about 15,000 compounds most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. The chemicals have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down in the environment.
\nFetuses are widely exposed to Pfas via umbilical cord blood. A review of 40 studies found researchers had collectively detected Pfas in each of 30,000 umbilical cord blood samples they checked. Elevated Pfas levels in mothers is associated with higher infant mortality, as well as low birth weight and obesity later in life. Studies have also linked fetal exposure to cancer, neurological problems and cardiovascular disease later in life.
\nThe “legacy” compounds like Pfoa and Pfos were most commonly used until the last decade. Those have been phased out, and replaced with newer generations of Pfas that chemical makers claim, often without evidence, are less toxic. Meanwhile, Pfas may break down into new compounds once in the environment or human body.
\nRegulators’ methods to check blood, water and other mediums for these new Pfas have been slow in keeping up with the shift. The US Environmental Protection Agency, for example, typically only checks water samples using a test method that looks for around 30-40 compounds, though thousands have been found in water by independent researchers. A 2022 Guardian analysis found regulators frequently undercounted Pfas levels in water.
\nThe Mount Sinai study effectively compared the umbilical cord blood samples using the old analysis and the broader “non-targeted” analysis that checks for thousands of compounds.
\nAs expected, the more comprehensive testing found more Pfas, Liu said. The EPA recently certified a blood test that will check for 53 compounds. Liu said the expanded list is an improvement over the more limited tests, but Mount Sinai’s non-targeted analysis found 31 compounds not included in the EPA test.
\nWhat does this mean for babies? The study did not look at health problems, and Liu said the impact is “kind of unclear”, but higher levels of Pfas in blood are generally associated with a higher risk of health problems.
\nThe blood that researchers analyzed was drawn as part of the federal government’s Home study, which follows people’s Pfas exposure and health outcomes through life. Mount Sinai’s authors will likely try to understand the health implications.
\nThe study shows how “harms to babies polluted with a complete mixture of Pfas chemicals has likely been underestimated due to the inability to measure these compounds”, said David Andrews, acting chief science officer with the Environmental Working Group non-profit, which was not involved in the study.
\n“This paper is a stark reminder of the importance of health-protective regulations and how lax oversight can result in babies being born pre-polluted with harmful chemicals such as Pfas,” Andrews added.
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"bodyImages":[],"discussionId":"/p/x4hj47","section":"Society","id":"society/2026/mar/14/fetuses-pfas-forever-chemicals","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d2ce1336b00dc44ec66d9b0b821ee6727200fb19/812_454_5079_3386/master/5079.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=0792f81c4a1616b7c66e69222708472a","height":3386,"width":5079,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"‘Fetuses are widely exposed to Pfas via umbilical cord blood.’ Photograph: Photograph: Olga Rolenko/Getty Images","credit":"Olga Rolenko/Getty Images","altText":"close up of a baby's hand hold the thumb of a parent's hand","cleanCaption":"‘Fetuses are widely exposed to Pfas via umbilical cord blood.’","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Olga Rolenko/Getty Images"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"US test of 120 umbilical blood cord samples identified 42 Pfas compounds, which do not naturally break down
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\nThe review of six states’ lobbying records conducted by the non-profit F-Minus found a range of scenarios in which firms lobbied both sides. Most common Pfas are linked to cancer. The lobbying firm Holland & Knight works for the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation’s largest Pfas makers, and aggressively opposes most regulations. Simultaneously, Holland & Knight lobbies for the American Cancer Society.
\nIn a statement to the Guardian, Holland & Knight said they follow “rigorous ethics and conflict-review procedures in all of its legal and public policy work”.
\nThey claim: “the report’s conclusions are based on a flawed premise that assumes any client relationship means the firm is advocating on that client’s behalf on every policy issue. That is a mischaracterization of the nature of the firm’s work for its clients and mistakenly implies conflicts where none exist.”
\nLobbyist Rocky Dallum of the Tonkon Torp firm lobbied against a state bill in Oregon that would have banned Pfas in many consumer goods. He also lobbied for the Oregon Bioscience Association for funding for rare diseases screening in newborns. In-utero Pfas exposure is linked to decreased immunity, neurotoxic effects, rare cancers and other health issues.
\nIn New Jersey, state records show the Princeton Public Affairs Group lobbied for and against a bill that banned Pfas in some consumer goods. The company made $96,000, F-Minus found.
\nIndustry and lobbyists frequently succeed in killing public health bills, or leaders sometimes enact “half measures”, said James Browning, F Minus’s executive director, and a former lobbyist. Either way, the lobbying groups get paid.
\n“Whatever negative publicity damage it might do to their reputation on the wrong side of forever chemicals is mitigated by some of the good work they do for schools or cancer groups,” Browning said.
\nThe review found 26 healthcare systems, 11 public school systems, 15 wildlife groups and 132 local governments that share lobbying firms with Pfas makers or trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council and Cookware Sustainability Alliance. The lobbyists work across 36 states.
\nThe report comes amid a broad effort at all levels of the government that aims to rein in Pfas pollution and exposures. The chemicals are widely used in consumer goods and industry, and are linked to a range of health problems like cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, kidney disease and hormone disruption.
\nThe public health effort has drawn an intense lobbying operation in opposition by the chemical industry, which has killed most Pfas legislation in recent years. The F-Minus analysis zeroed in on six states because laws around lobbying disclosures are weak in most states, making it virtually impossible to track the activity. F-Minus is in the process of assembling a congressional lobbying tracker, Browning said.
\nThe report used lobbying around two Pfas-related bills in California to illustrate how the scenario may slow efforts to rein in Pfas while enriching lobbyists who play both sides. SB 682 proposed banning Pfas in cookware and some other consumer products, while SB 454 created a private fund to help clean up Pfas in water.
\nPfas in consumer products is a source of water pollution, and water utilities across the state supported the consumer products ban.
\nThe lobbying firm KP Public Affairs made nearly $275,000 lobbying for and against SB 682. It represented multiple chemical makers or trade groups opposed to it. It lobbied in favor of the bill for the Western Municipal Water District. The Public Policy Advocates firm, meanwhile, lobbied for the cleanup fund, and, while representing the American Chemistry Council, worked against the consumer products ban.
\nNewsom vetoed the consumer product ban, but not the cleanup fund, meaning Pfas-laden products will continue to pollute California water and fuel the demand for cleanup. The veto gave the “double dipping lobbying firms the ability to claim a win with their industrial, PFAS-using clients, and also claim a win with their clients who supported SB 454, despite the fact that this veto will further contamination of California’s water systems with Pfas”, the report states.
\nState and federal laws do not prohibit firms from lobbying on both sides of an issue, and it is quite common, said Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist with Public Citizen, a campaign finance watchdog. However, firms can be held legally liable to their clients if there is any cooperation or sharing of information between the two sides, Holman added. And the situation raises credibility questions.
\n“Most firms want to be recognized as renowned experts in advocating a specific position,” Holman said. “Lobbying both sides of an issue obfuscates that type of reputation.”
\nBrowning, who used to lobby for the American Cancer Society, said there is a “halo effect” in lobbying for public health organizations, but it is undeserved if lobbyists are working for both sides. Some organizations know that the firms they hire are conflicted, but still do not cut ties, Browning said. Other groups likely do not know their lobbying firms are playing both sides.
\nMeanwhile, Pfas harm animals. Among wildlife groups that share lobbying firms with the American Chemistry Council are Marine Mammal Center in California, Salmon For All in Oregon and the New York League of Conservation Voters.
\nA Pennsylvania state law requires schools to test drinking water for several Pfas compounds. Four Philadelphia schools have been found to be in violation of state standards. The city of Philadelphia and American Chemistry Council share the lobbying firm, Holland & Knight.
\nThe American Chemistry Council has lobbied for federal laws that would kill state rules around Pfas. Holland & Knight received $80,000 and $520,000 from Philadelphia and the American Chemistry Council, respectively, the report found.
\nAfter widespread Pfas contamination was found in Maine’s farmland and drinking water supplies, the state enacted a ban on non-essential uses of Pfas, including most consumer goods. The law allows some products to be exempted. The Preti Flaherty firm is working on behalf of the Cookware Sustainability Alliance to get cookware exempted, records show. It is also lobbying against a bill to require health insurers to pay for residents to check their blood for the chemicals.
\nAt the same time, Preti Flaherty lobbies for the Portland Water District, which is dealing with Pfas-contaminated water and recently joined a lawsuit against 18 Pfas manufacturers, the report noted.
\nThe report calls on groups and governments to cut ties with conflicted firms, just as many did with tobacco industry lobbyists.
\n“The goal is to put lobbying firms that are playing both sides of the issue in the spotlight so they have to pick a side on whether they’re with us and our families, or whether they’re with the chemical industry,” Jenny Zimmer, co-executive director of the Mothers Out Front nonprofit, which co-authored the report, said.
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"bodyImages":[],"discussionId":"/p/x4t2kn","section":"Environment","id":"environment/2026/mar/14/pfas-lobby-firms","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/56a5ba562711602294bbd692995ce1ec72a8cf68/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=a5ae0d604c40303a656cde6641b51f6c","height":3648,"width":5472,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Lobbying firms playing both sides of the Pfas issue raises serious conflict of interest questions and concerns. Photograph: Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto","credit":"pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto","altText":"Close up side shot of microplastics on a person's hand","cleanCaption":"Lobbying firms playing both sides of the Pfas issue raises serious conflict of interest questions and concerns.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Review from non-profit finds range of scenarios of firms simultaneously lobbying for and against Pfas regulations
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Photograph: Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto","credit":"pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto","altText":"Close up side shot of microplastics on a person's hand","cleanCaption":"Lobbying firms playing both sides of the Pfas issue raises serious conflict of interest questions and concerns.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto"},"campaigns":[],"designType":"Article","palette":{"background":"#00000000","mediaIcon":"#00000000","pillar":"#C70000","main":"#C70000","secondary":"#FF4E36","headline":"#121212","commentCount":"#707070","metaText":"#707070","elementBackground":"#FF4E36","shadow":"#DCDCDC","immersiveKicker":"#FF4E36","topBorder":"#DCDCDC","mediaBackground":"#EDEDED","pill":"#EDEDED","accentColour":"#C70000","kickerText":"#C70000","kickerColours":{"plainKickerText":"#C70000","plainPill":"#EDEDED","liveKickerText":"#F6F6F6","livePill":"#C70000","featureKickerText":"#FFF4F2","featurePill":"#EDEDED","featureLiveKickerText":"#EDEDED","featureLivePill":"#AB0613"},"mediaPillBackground":"#121212","mediaPillForeground":"#FFFFFF","featureAccentColour":"#FFF4F2"},"atoms":[]},"trailText":"Review from non-profit finds range of scenarios of firms simultaneously lobbying for and against Pfas regulations","showQuotedHeadline":false,"showLiveIndicator":false,"sublinks":[],"mainImage":{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/56a5ba562711602294bbd692995ce1ec72a8cf68/456_0_4560_3648/master/4560.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=d28975d5063dcfafa0e6691bf1de80df","height":3648,"width":4560,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto","altText":"Close up side shot of microplastics on a person's hand","cleanCredit":"Photograph: pcess609/Getty Images/iStockphoto"},"renderedItemProd":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/14/pfas-lobby-firms?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemBeta":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/14/pfas-lobby-firms?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemDebug":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/14/pfas-lobby-firms?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"cardDesignType":"Article","correspondingTags":[],"type":"Article","importance":0},{"title":"Fox News host urged Trump to seize Kharg Island ahead of US strikes – as it happened","rawTitle":"Fox News host urged Trump to seize Kharg Island ahead of US strikes – as it happened","item":{"trailText":"Jesse Watters suggested seizing island could end water and allow shipping through strait of Hormuz to resume","liveContent":{"liveBloggingNow":false,"summary":{"id":"block-69b462a58f086d5b46c02677","title":"Here's a recap of the day so far","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:14:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:14:12Z","body":"A federal judge in Washington DC blocked two justice department subpoenas to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors – including one seeking testimony from chair Jerome Powell – over his remarks to Congress on the central bank’s renovation project. In a 27-page ruling issued on Friday, chief judge James Boasberg said “a mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.”
\nSpeaking to Fox News, Donald Trump again tried to limit concerns around the economy in the wake of the war on Iran, particularly the increasing price of fuel. “This will bounce right back when it’s over, and I don’t think it’s going to be long when it’s over,” he said. When asked when that might be, Trump said it would be up to him: “When I feel it in my bones.”
\nThe armed suspect who crashed into a large Michigan synagogue had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, an unnamed official told the Associated Press on Friday. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized US citizen born in Lebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township outside Detroit on Thursday.
\nDuring his Pentagon press conference on Friday, Pete Hegseth downplayed disruption to the strait of Hormuz, which Iran has closed off. “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” the defense secretary said without offering much detail.
\nEmployees at the Transport Security Administration (Tsa) are set to miss their first full paychecks on Friday, as the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nears a month. This week, the Senate failed again to pass a funding bill to reopen the department, as Democratic lawmakers demand stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement.
\nThis concludes our live coverage of US politics for the day, but for updates on the US war on Iran, please visit our Middle East crisis live blog. Here are the days developments:
\nDonald Trump order the US military to bomb military targets on Kharg Island, a vital oil transit point for 90% of Iran’s oil exports, and threatned to attack oil infrastructure if Iran does not re-open the strait of Hormuz.
\nTrump told the Guardian in a 1988 interview he was reminded of by Fox News on Friday that, should he ever become US president: “I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it.”
\nTwice on Friday, vice-president JD Vance cited secrecy to dodge questions about claims by unnamed administration officials that he is “skeptical” about or even opposed to the war on Iran.
\nSenator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called on the justice department to drop what he called the “weak and frivolous” criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, after a federal judge blocked a justice department subpoena of Powell on Friday.
\nIn the midst of armed hostilities with Iran in a war he started, Trump found time on Friday to concern himself with what he apparently considers a pressing issue: who will run the Kennedy Center, the living memorial to John F Kennedy created by Congress that Trump added his name to, while it is closed for renovations.
\nThirty six years before Donald Trump ordered military strikes on Iran’s vital oil hub, Kharg island, he told the Guardian that he would attack the island if he ever became president and Iran fired even one bullet at an American.
\nIn a 1988 interview with the Guardian, which Trump was reminded of during a Fox News interview on Friday morning, Polly Toynbee, now a Guardian columnist, asked the businessman what his platform would be if he ever did run for president.
\n“Respect,” Trump replied.
\n“We’re a second rate economic power, a debtor nation. We’re getting kicked around,” he added.
\nWhen Toynbee asked him what he would do about Iran, Trump replied:
\n\n\nI’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it. Iran can’t even beat Iraq, yet they push the United States around. It’d be good for the world to take them on.
\n
Seven years before that interview, the New York Times and other outlets had reported that Pentagon invasion plans for Iran drawn up during the 1979 hostage crisis started with an attack on Kharg Island.
","cleanBody":"Thirty six years before Donald Trump ordered military strikes on Iran’s vital oil hub, Kharg island, he told the Guardian that he would attack the island if he ever became president and Iran fired even one bullet at an American. In a 1988 interview with the Guardian, which Trump was reminded of during a Fox News interview on Friday morning, Polly Toynbee, now a Guardian columnist, asked the businessman what his platform would be if he ever did run for president. “Respect,” Trump replied. “We’re a second rate economic power, a debtor nation. We’re getting kicked around,” he added. When Toynbee asked him what he would do about Iran, Trump replied: I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it. Iran can’t even beat Iraq, yet they push the United States around. It’d be good for the world to take them on. Seven years before that interview, the New York Times and other outlets had reported that Pentagon invasion plans for Iran drawn up during the 1979 hostage crisis started with an attack on Kharg Island.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4b3958f086d5b46c0281f","title":"Trump's Air Force One traveling companions include his wife, father-in-law and aide indicted in classified documents case","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-14T01:29:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-14T01:29:12Z","body":"The White House released a list of family members and close aides traveling to Florida with Donald Trump on Air Force One this evening.
\nIn addition to his wife, Melania Trump, the president is accompanied by his father-in-law, Viktor Knavs who is just two years older than his son-in-law.
\nOthers on the flight include: the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who tried and failed to conceal from the public that he once visited Trump’s former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, on the late child sex offender’s private island.
\nOne of the aides on the flight is Walt Nauta, a former US Navy valet to Trump during his first term, who was indicted along with Trump by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023 for allegedly helping Trump retain and hide boxes of classified documents at his beach club, Mar-a-Lago, when he was not president.
\nThe traveling party also includes Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp, the only two aides who are reported to have permission to post in Trump’s name on his Truth Social account.
\nScavino, a deputy chief of staff, started as Trump’s golf caddy and is widely credited with orchestrating his social media presence.
\nHarp left her job as a host on the far-right One America News channel in 2022 to become what some colleagues called Trump’s “human printer”, because she carried around a portable printer to provide her boss with hard copies of social media posts, articles and conspiracy theories flattering him and demeaning his rivals.
\nIn 2023, a half-dozen people around Trump told the New York Times that Harp had written a series of letters to Trump that unnerved people around him.
\n\n","cleanBody":"The White House released a list of family members and close aides traveling to Florida with Donald Trump on Air Force One this evening. In addition to his wife, Melania Trump, the president is accompanied by his father-in-law, Viktor Knavs who is just two years older than his son-in-law. Others on the flight include: the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who tried and failed to conceal from the public that he once visited Trump’s former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, on the late child sex offender’s private island. One of the aides on the flight is Walt Nauta, a former US Navy valet to Trump during his first term, who was indicted along with Trump by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023 for allegedly helping Trump retain and hide boxes of classified documents at his beach club, Mar-a-Lago, when he was not president. The traveling party also includes Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp, the only two aides who are reported to have permission to post in Trump’s name on his Truth Social account. Scavino, a deputy chief of staff, started as Trump’s golf caddy and is widely credited with orchestrating his social media presence. Harp left her job as a host on the far-right One America News channel in 2022 to become what some colleagues called Trump’s “human printer”, because she carried around a portable printer to provide her boss with hard copies of social media posts, articles and conspiracy theories flattering him and demeaning his rivals. In 2023, a half-dozen people around Trump told the New York Times that Harp had written a series of letters to Trump that unnerved people around him. “You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one of the letters, which were seen by The New York Times. The letters’ authenticity was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them. “I don’t ever want to let you down,” Ms. Harp wrote, thanking Mr. Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.” In another letter, she told Mr. Trump that she wanted to get back to “that synergy” she used to have with him, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.” “I want to bring you joy,” she wrote, “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4a4a18f08300dbfa3eabe","title":"Fox News host urged Trump to seize Kharg island ahead of US strikes","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-14T00:52:09Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-15T15:09:39Z","body":"“You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one of the letters, which were seen by The New York Times. The letters’ authenticity was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them.
\n“I don’t ever want to let you down,” Ms. Harp wrote, thanking Mr. Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.”
\nIn another letter, she told Mr. Trump that she wanted to get back to “that synergy” she used to have with him, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.”
\n“I want to bring you joy,” she wrote, “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”
\n
Just 24 hours before Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s Kharg island, a vital oil hub home to 10,000 people, one of the president’s favorite cable news pundits suggested that seizing the island could end the war and make it safe for shipping through the strait of Hormuz to resume.
\nIran exports about 90% of its crude oil through facilities on the island, which is about 20 miles off the mainland in the Persian Gulf.
\n“We might not get what we got in Venezuela, but as long as Iran’s completely disarmed, and can’t threaten America and the strait with missiles, drone and nukes, the president will take the win,” Jesse Watters told his Fox News viewers Thursday night.
\n“We also have Kharg island, 15 miles off Iran’s coast, their main export terminal, essentially the country’s cash register,” Watters added. “Kharg’s Iran’s oil lifeline; if we seize it, it’s over. That option remains on the table.”
\n![\"aerial](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/0c13a8177f0a9e9b411c548a7c7145d25228283a/0_0_3600_2400/1000.jpg\")
\n In 1980, nine months after 52 American were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the columnist Jack Anderson revealed that Kharg Island was the primary target of a US invasion plan presented to then president Jimmy Carter. “Kharg Island is the site of the oil terminal through which 90 percent of Iran’s crude is pumped into tankers for export,” Anderson wrote. “Not long after the U.S. hostages were seized in Iran, contingency plans were developed for an assault on Kharg Island.”
\nAfter Carter was defeated the New York Times reported in a 1981 account of the hostage crisis that the Pentagon plans for military action against Iran, included a naval blockade, mining its harbors, and seizing of the huge oil depot on Kharg Island. “The closest Mr. Carter came to ordering such action,” he told the Times, “was on Nov. 20, 1979, 14 days after the seizure, when the Ayatollah was publicly threatening to put the hostages on trial for espionage.”
\nCarter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, whose campaign was believed by some Carter aides to have cut a secret deal with Iran’s leaders to prolong the hostage crisis and prevent their releaser in a pre-election “October surprise” that could have swayed the 1980 election, also left Kharg untouched during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
\n“Although Iraqi forces struck some terminals and tankers during the eight-year war, Kharg remained largely operational and damage was typically repaired quickly, demonstrating that disabling it would require sustained, large-scale attacks,” JP Morgan said in a note reported by Reuters on Monday.
","cleanBody":"Just 24 hours before Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s Kharg island, a vital oil hub home to 10,000 people, one of the president’s favorite cable news pundits suggested that seizing the island could end the war and make it safe for shipping through the strait of Hormuz to resume. Iran exports about 90% of its crude oil through facilities on the island, which is about 20 miles off the mainland in the Persian Gulf. “We might not get what we got in Venezuela, but as long as Iran’s completely disarmed, and can’t threaten America and the strait with missiles, drone and nukes, the president will take the win,” Jesse Watters told his Fox News viewers Thursday night. “We also have Kharg island, 15 miles off Iran’s coast, their main export terminal, essentially the country’s cash register,” Watters added. “Kharg’s Iran’s oil lifeline; if we seize it, it’s over. That option remains on the table.”\nIn 1980, nine months after 52 American were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the columnist Jack Anderson revealed that Kharg Island was the primary target of a US invasion plan presented to then president Jimmy Carter. “Kharg Island is the site of the oil terminal through which 90 percent of Iran’s crude is pumped into tankers for export,” Anderson wrote. “Not long after the U.S. hostages were seized in Iran, contingency plans were developed for an assault on Kharg Island.” After Carter was defeated the New York Times reported in a 1981 account of the hostage crisis that the Pentagon plans for military action against Iran, included a naval blockade, mining its harbors, and seizing of the huge oil depot on Kharg Island. “The closest Mr. Carter came to ordering such action,” he told the Times, “was on Nov. 20, 1979, 14 days after the seizure, when the Ayatollah was publicly threatening to put the hostages on trial for espionage.” Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, whose campaign was believed by some Carter aides to have cut a secret deal with Iran’s leaders to prolong the hostage crisis and prevent their releaser in a pre-election “October surprise” that could have swayed the 1980 election, also left Kharg untouched during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. “Although Iraqi forces struck some terminals and tankers during the eight-year war, Kharg remained largely operational and damage was typically repaired quickly, demonstrating that disabling it would require sustained, large-scale attacks,” JP Morgan said in a note reported by Reuters on Monday.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4a0918f08300dbfa3eab2","title":"Trump says US 'totally obliterated' military targets on Iranian island used for 90% of its oil exports","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-13T23:55:02Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-13T23:55:01Z","body":"From his seat on Air Force One, which is ferrying him to his Florida beach club, Donald Trump just announced on social media that the US military has “executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.”
\nThe five-mile-long coral island, located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, had been previously untouched in US bombing, given its importance to Iran’s oil exports, 90% of which originate there.
\nTrump claimed that only military targets were struck, since, “for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island.”
\n“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he added.
\nIran has effectively closed the strait, a vital channel out of the Persian Gulf for up to 20% of the world’s oil supply, by attacking commercial ships and laying mines.
","cleanBody":"From his seat on Air Force One, which is ferrying him to his Florida beach club, Donald Trump just announced on social media that the US military has “executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.” The five-mile-long coral island, located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, had been previously untouched in US bombing, given its importance to Iran’s oil exports, 90% of which originate there. Trump claimed that only military targets were struck, since, “for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island.” “However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he added. Iran has effectively closed the strait, a vital channel out of the Persian Gulf for up to 20% of the world’s oil supply, by attacking commercial ships and laying mines.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b486288f08300dbfa3ea3a","title":"Vance cites secrecy to dodge questions on his reported reservations about Iran war","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-13T23:39:42Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-16T08:36:53Z","body":"Twice on Friday, vice-president JD Vance cited secrecy to dodge questions about claims by unnamed administration officials that he is “skeptical” about or even opposed to the war on Iran Donald Trump launched two weeks ago from an improvised situation room at his Florida beach club.
\nTrump himself told reporters on Monday at his Florida golf club that Vance “was, I’d say, philosophically a little different from me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was still quite enthusiastic.”
\nAfter Politico reported early Friday that one official texted a reporter that Vance is “skeptical”, “worried about success” and “just opposes” the war on Iran, the vice-president was asked at an event in North Carolina about what he advised the president to do before the attack on Iran, and whether he still has the concerns he has expressed in the past about extended wars.
\nVance laughed at the question and then told the reporter who asked: “Imagine the situation: we’re in the Situation Room, where you can’t even take your ipod in there, or your airpods I guess what they’re called, you can’t take your iphone in there, you can’t take anything in there, because it is the most classified space anywhere in the world. And I sit there with Pete Hegseth and General Caine and Marco Rubio and the entire White House team, and the president and I, and the entire senior team, are talking about the options”.
\n“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not gonna show up here and in front of God and everybody else tell you exactly what I said in that classified room,” the vice-president said, to laughter from the audience.
\n“Partially because I don’t wanna go to prison,” he continued, “and partially because I think it’s important for the president of the United States to be able to talk to his advisors without those advisors running their mouth to the American media.”
\nSpeaking to reporters after the event, the vice-president was pressed to explain Trump’s remarks. “The president said earlier this week that you had a philosophical difference, than him, that you were less enthusiastic on the onset of this war. Is that true? And what is your opinion of how it’s going?” a reporter asked.
\n“When you’re thinking about a major decision like this, the way the president makes these decisions is he talks to a lot of people,” Vance replied.
\n“Obviously we’re thinking about various ins and outs, various options, what this looks like, how to accomplish our goals, what our goals should be, and I think it’s important for the president of the United States to be able to have that conversation with his team, without his team then running their mouth to the American media,” thevice-president continued. “So part of what makes our national security team so cohesive is that we all trust each other, and we all have a very free exchange of ideas. I’d like to keep that going.”
\nVance then ended the exchange and walked away.
\nThe vice-president’s assertion that the decision to start a war with Iran was made in “the most classified space anywhere in the world”, the White House Situation Room, was undercut somewhat by photographs from the first day of the war, which showed Vance in the Situation Room, while Trump conferred with Rubio, Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s former caddie turned social media guru, in a makeshift situation room at his Mar-a-Lago beach club, secured mainly by black drapes.
\n![\"Official](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/257300f58696812240c07f3da25cddde902089dc/0_0_3200_2400/1000.jpg\")
\n Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called on the justice department to drop what he called the “weak and frivolous” criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, after a federal judge blocked a justice department subpoena of Powell on Friday.
\nTillis, who promised in January to block the confirmation of any nominee for the Federal Reserve board, including Donald Trump’s pick to replace Powell at the end of his term this year, unless the Powell investigation was dropped, reiterated that threat
\nThe ruling, Tillis wrote in a statement, confirms that the investigation of Powell, who has refused to lower interest rates as Trump demands, “is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence.”
\n“We all know how this is going to end and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on,” Tillis added. “Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.”
\nJeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host appointed US attorney for Washington DC by Trump, heatedly dismissed Tillis’s plea, in a news conference in which she said the decision by “an activist judge” would be appealed, and scolded journalists for asking her why grand juries are refusing to charge people her office seeks to prosecute for what appear to be partisan, political reasons.
\nAsked directly about Tillis’s threat to block Trump’s nominees, Pirro said: “honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care. You know why? I am in a legal lane. All of the rest is white noise. I don’t care what they say.”
\nPressed as to whether she could assure the senator that the investigation would be dropped, Pirro shot back: “Did you hear what I just said? I just said that this decision will be appealed.”
\nMoments later, as Pirro insisted that she did not even know who Trump’s pick to lead the Fed after Powell was, she was forced to silence an incoming call on her phone.
\nSenator Elizabeth Warren, the senior Democrat on the banking committee, also said that the Senate should not confirm any new nominees to the Federal Reserve unless and until politically motivated criminal investigations into both the central bank’s chair, Powell, and a board member, Lisa Cook, end.
\nIn a social media post, Warren said that the ruling by federal district court judge James Boasberg, blocking a justice department subpoena of Powell, just confirmed “what we all already know: the Trump Administration’s weaponization of DOJ against Jerome Powell amounts to nothing more than a witch hunt.”
\n“The Senate should not move forward with any Fed nomination until the probes against Powell and Lisa Cook are dropped,” Warren said.
","cleanBody":"Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called on the justice department to drop what he called the “weak and frivolous” criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, after a federal judge blocked a justice department subpoena of Powell on Friday. Tillis, who promised in January to block the confirmation of any nominee for the Federal Reserve board, including Donald Trump’s pick to replace Powell at the end of his term this year, unless the Powell investigation was dropped, reiterated that threat The ruling, Tillis wrote in a statement, confirms that the investigation of Powell, who has refused to lower interest rates as Trump demands, “is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence.” “We all know how this is going to end and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on,” Tillis added. “Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.” Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host appointed US attorney for Washington DC by Trump, heatedly dismissed Tillis’s plea, in a news conference in which she said the decision by “an activist judge” would be appealed, and scolded journalists for asking her why grand juries are refusing to charge people her office seeks to prosecute for what appear to be partisan, political reasons. Asked directly about Tillis’s threat to block Trump’s nominees, Pirro said: “honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care. You know why? I am in a legal lane. All of the rest is white noise. I don’t care what they say.” Pressed as to whether she could assure the senator that the investigation would be dropped, Pirro shot back: “Did you hear what I just said? I just said that this decision will be appealed.” Moments later, as Pirro insisted that she did not even know who Trump’s pick to lead the Fed after Powell was, she was forced to silence an incoming call on her phone. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the senior Democrat on the banking committee, also said that the Senate should not confirm any new nominees to the Federal Reserve unless and until politically motivated criminal investigations into both the central bank’s chair, Powell, and a board member, Lisa Cook, end. In a social media post, Warren said that the ruling by federal district court judge James Boasberg, blocking a justice department subpoena of Powell, just confirmed “what we all already know: the Trump Administration’s weaponization of DOJ against Jerome Powell amounts to nothing more than a witch hunt.” “The Senate should not move forward with any Fed nomination until the probes against Powell and Lisa Cook are dropped,” Warren said.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4788c8f086d5b46c02711","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:50:48Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:50:48Z","body":"A group of protesters in Texas was found guilty of providing support for terrorism and other charges on Friday in a closely watched case in which prosecutors alleged anti-ICE activists were actually part of an antifa cell.
\nThe case was seen as a major test of the first amendment and whether the government could use a broad anti-terrorism statute to prosecute leftwing protesters. It marked the first time the government alleged individuals were part of an antifa terrorist cell in a criminal prosecution.
\nNine defendants – Benjamin Song, Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Savanna Batten, Ines Soto, Elizabeth Soto and Daniel Sanchez-Estrada – were all tried together in the case. They faced a mix of charges of providing material support to terrorists, rioting, attempted murder, as well as firearms and explosive charges.
\nSanchez-Estrada was the only defendant not at the protest, and was only charged with corruptly concealing a document or record, after prosecutors say he moved leftwing zines following the arrest of his wife, Maricela Rueda, on the Fourth of July. Song also escaped after the incident and there was an 11-day manhunt for him. Several other people were charged with assisting Song during that period.
\nThe nine defendants were convicted on all of the charges they faced, with limited exceptions. Of the five charged with attempted murder, Evetts, Hill, Morris and Rueda were acquitted on three counts of attempted murder and firearms charges. Song was acquitted on two charges of attempted murder and convicted on one. He was also convicted of the firearms charges.
\n","cleanBody":"A group of protesters in Texas was found guilty of providing support for terrorism and other charges on Friday in a closely watched case in which prosecutors alleged anti-ICE activists were actually part of an antifa cell. The case was seen as a major test of the first amendment and whether the government could use a broad anti-terrorism statute to prosecute leftwing protesters. It marked the first time the government alleged individuals were part of an antifa terrorist cell in a criminal prosecution. Nine defendants – Benjamin Song, Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Savanna Batten, Ines Soto, Elizabeth Soto and Daniel Sanchez-Estrada – were all tried together in the case. They faced a mix of charges of providing material support to terrorists, rioting, attempted murder, as well as firearms and explosive charges. Sanchez-Estrada was the only defendant not at the protest, and was only charged with corruptly concealing a document or record, after prosecutors say he moved leftwing zines following the arrest of his wife, Maricela Rueda, on the Fourth of July. Song also escaped after the incident and there was an 11-day manhunt for him. Several other people were charged with assisting Song during that period. The nine defendants were convicted on all of the charges they faced, with limited exceptions. Of the five charged with attempted murder, Evetts, Hill, Morris and Rueda were acquitted on three counts of attempted murder and firearms charges. Song was acquitted on two charges of attempted murder and convicted on one. He was also convicted of the firearms charges.","postType":"blog","contributors":["sam-levine"]},{"id":"block-69b472dd8f08de00c5265d1e","title":"Trump removes Ric Grenell as head of what he calls 'the Trump Kennedy Center'","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:49:08Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-13T22:08:33Z","body":"In the midst of armed hostilities with Iran in a war he started, Donald Trump found time on Friday to concern himself with what he apparently considers a pressing issue: who will run the Kennedy Center, the living memorial to John F Kennedy created by Congress that Trump added his name to, while it is closed for renovations.
\nTrump announced on social media that he has replaced Ric Grenell, the belligerent Republican activist currently running the arts center, with Matt Floca, the operations vice president, who was photographed in December personally overseeing the addition of Trump’s name to the center’s facade by the independent journalist Chris Geidner.
\nEarlier in the day, as US forces remain engaged in combat with Iran, Trump shared renderings for the renovation of what he called the “new, highly improved, TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER!”
\nGrenell, long known for his hyper-aggressive confrontations with journalists and political rivals on Twitter and then X, served as US ambassador to Germany and then acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term. He was appointed despite no prior arts experience.
\nA source “familiar with the White House view” told CNN that Trump blames Grenell for doing a bad job of managing the publicity for the Kennedy Center during his tenure. The president apparently blames Grenell for a host of artists cancelling appearances after Trump had himself appointed chairman of the center’s board, and then had his name added to the exterior wall of the center, despite lacking congressional approval for changing the name of the memorial to his assassinated predecessor.
\nGrenell was rumored to have been in contention to be Trump’s second-term secretary of state, after he brokered a limited economic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo in 2020 that the president falsely portrayed as ending the war between the two former Yugoslav regions which concluded decades earlier.
\nAs the independent journalist Jacqueline Sweet reported a week after the 2024 election, Grenell deleted more than 6,371 of his old posts on Twitter, now X, including tweets as far back as 2012 when he joined Mitt Romney campaign as foreign policy spokesman, before being ousted after just weeks when his abrasive posts came to light.
","cleanBody":"In the midst of armed hostilities with Iran in a war he started, Donald Trump found time on Friday to concern himself with what he apparently considers a pressing issue: who will run the Kennedy Center, the living memorial to John F Kennedy created by Congress that Trump added his name to, while it is closed for renovations. Trump announced on social media that he has replaced Ric Grenell, the belligerent Republican activist currently running the arts center, with Matt Floca, the operations vice president, who was photographed in December personally overseeing the addition of Trump’s name to the center’s facade by the independent journalist Chris Geidner. Earlier in the day, as US forces remain engaged in combat with Iran, Trump shared renderings for the renovation of what he called the “new, highly improved, TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER!” Grenell, long known for his hyper-aggressive confrontations with journalists and political rivals on Twitter and then X, served as US ambassador to Germany and then acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term. He was appointed despite no prior arts experience. A source “familiar with the White House view” told CNN that Trump blames Grenell for doing a bad job of managing the publicity for the Kennedy Center during his tenure. The president apparently blames Grenell for a host of artists cancelling appearances after Trump had himself appointed chairman of the center’s board, and then had his name added to the exterior wall of the center, despite lacking congressional approval for changing the name of the memorial to his assassinated predecessor. Grenell was rumored to have been in contention to be Trump’s second-term secretary of state, after he brokered a limited economic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo in 2020 that the president falsely portrayed as ending the war between the two former Yugoslav regions which concluded decades earlier. As the independent journalist Jacqueline Sweet reported a week after the 2024 election, Grenell deleted more than 6,371 of his old posts on Twitter, now X, including tweets as far back as 2012 when he joined Mitt Romney campaign as foreign policy spokesman, before being ousted after just weeks when his abrasive posts came to light.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b462a58f086d5b46c02677","title":"Here's a recap of the day so far","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:14:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-13T20:14:12Z","body":"A federal judge in Washington DC blocked two justice department subpoenas to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors – including one seeking testimony from chair Jerome Powell – over his remarks to Congress on the central bank’s renovation project. In a 27-page ruling issued on Friday, chief judge James Boasberg said “a mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.”
\nSpeaking to Fox News, Donald Trump again tried to limit concerns around the economy in the wake of the war on Iran, particularly the increasing price of fuel. “This will bounce right back when it’s over, and I don’t think it’s going to be long when it’s over,” he said. When asked when that might be, Trump said it would be up to him: “When I feel it in my bones.”
\nThe armed suspect who crashed into a large Michigan synagogue had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, an unnamed official told the Associated Press on Friday. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized US citizen born in Lebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township outside Detroit on Thursday.
\nDuring his Pentagon press conference on Friday, Pete Hegseth downplayed disruption to the strait of Hormuz, which Iran has closed off. “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” the defense secretary said without offering much detail.
\nEmployees at the Transport Security Administration (Tsa) are set to miss their first full paychecks on Friday, as the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nears a month. This week, the Senate failed again to pass a funding bill to reopen the department, as Democratic lawmakers demand stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement.
\nA federal judge in Washington DC blocked two justice department subpoenas to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors – including one seeking testimony from chair Jerome Powell – over his remarks to Congress on the central bank’s renovation project. In a 27-page ruling issued on Friday, chief judge James Boasberg said “a mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.”
\nSpeaking to Fox News, Donald Trump again tried to limit concerns around the economy in the wake of the war on Iran, particularly the increasing price of fuel. “This will bounce right back when it’s over, and I don’t think it’s going to be long when it’s over,” he said. When asked when that might be, Trump said it would be up to him: “When I feel it in my bones.”
\nThe armed suspect who crashed into a large Michigan synagogue had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, an unnamed official told the Associated Press on Friday. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized US citizen born in Lebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township outside Detroit on Thursday.
\nDuring his Pentagon press conference on Friday, Pete Hegseth downplayed disruption to the strait of Hormuz, which Iran has closed off. “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” the defense secretary said without offering much detail.
\nEmployees at the Transport Security Administration (Tsa) are set to miss their first full paychecks on Friday, as the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nears a month. This week, the Senate failed again to pass a funding bill to reopen the department, as Democratic lawmakers demand stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement.
\nTwice on Friday, vice-president JD Vance cited secrecy to dodge questions about claims by unnamed administration officials that he is “skeptical” about or even opposed to the war on Iran Donald Trump launched two weeks ago from an improvised situation room at his Florida beach club.
\nTrump himself told reporters on Monday at his Florida golf club that Vance “was, I’d say, philosophically a little different from me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was still quite enthusiastic.”
\nAfter Politico reported early Friday that one official texted a reporter that Vance is “skeptical”, “worried about success” and “just opposes” the war on Iran, the vice-president was asked at an event in North Carolina about what he advised the president to do before the attack on Iran, and whether he still has the concerns he has expressed in the past about extended wars.
\nVance laughed at the question and then told the reporter who asked: “Imagine the situation: we’re in the Situation Room, where you can’t even take your ipod in there, or your airpods I guess what they’re called, you can’t take your iphone in there, you can’t take anything in there, because it is the most classified space anywhere in the world. And I sit there with Pete Hegseth and General Caine and Marco Rubio and the entire White House team, and the president and I, and the entire senior team, are talking about the options”.
\n“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not gonna show up here and in front of God and everybody else tell you exactly what I said in that classified room,” the vice-president said, to laughter from the audience.
\n“Partially because I don’t wanna go to prison,” he continued, “and partially because I think it’s important for the president of the United States to be able to talk to his advisors without those advisors running their mouth to the American media.”
\nSpeaking to reporters after the event, the vice-president was pressed to explain Trump’s remarks. “The president said earlier this week that you had a philosophical difference, than him, that you were less enthusiastic on the onset of this war. Is that true? And what is your opinion of how it’s going?” a reporter asked.
\n“When you’re thinking about a major decision like this, the way the president makes these decisions is he talks to a lot of people,” Vance replied.
\n“Obviously we’re thinking about various ins and outs, various options, what this looks like, how to accomplish our goals, what our goals should be, and I think it’s important for the president of the United States to be able to have that conversation with his team, without his team then running their mouth to the American media,” thevice-president continued. “So part of what makes our national security team so cohesive is that we all trust each other, and we all have a very free exchange of ideas. I’d like to keep that going.”
\nVance then ended the exchange and walked away.
\nThe vice-president’s assertion that the decision to start a war with Iran was made in “the most classified space anywhere in the world”, the White House Situation Room, was undercut somewhat by photographs from the first day of the war, which showed Vance in the Situation Room, while Trump conferred with Rubio, Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s former caddie turned social media guru, in a makeshift situation room at his Mar-a-Lago beach club, secured mainly by black drapes.
\n\n From his seat on Air Force One, which is ferrying him to his Florida beach club, Donald Trump just announced on social media that the US military has “executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.”
\nThe five-mile-long coral island, located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, had been previously untouched in US bombing, given its importance to Iran’s oil exports, 90% of which originate there.
\nTrump claimed that only military targets were struck, since, “for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island.”
\n“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he added.
\nIran has effectively closed the strait, a vital channel out of the Persian Gulf for up to 20% of the world’s oil supply, by attacking commercial ships and laying mines.
","cleanBody":"From his seat on Air Force One, which is ferrying him to his Florida beach club, Donald Trump just announced on social media that the US military has “executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.” The five-mile-long coral island, located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, had been previously untouched in US bombing, given its importance to Iran’s oil exports, 90% of which originate there. Trump claimed that only military targets were struck, since, “for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island.” “However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he added. Iran has effectively closed the strait, a vital channel out of the Persian Gulf for up to 20% of the world’s oil supply, by attacking commercial ships and laying mines.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4a4a18f08300dbfa3eabe","title":"Fox News host urged Trump to seize Kharg island ahead of US strikes","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-14T00:52:09Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-15T15:09:39Z","body":"Just 24 hours before Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s Kharg island, a vital oil hub home to 10,000 people, one of the president’s favorite cable news pundits suggested that seizing the island could end the war and make it safe for shipping through the strait of Hormuz to resume.
\nIran exports about 90% of its crude oil through facilities on the island, which is about 20 miles off the mainland in the Persian Gulf.
\n“We might not get what we got in Venezuela, but as long as Iran’s completely disarmed, and can’t threaten America and the strait with missiles, drone and nukes, the president will take the win,” Jesse Watters told his Fox News viewers Thursday night.
\n“We also have Kharg island, 15 miles off Iran’s coast, their main export terminal, essentially the country’s cash register,” Watters added. “Kharg’s Iran’s oil lifeline; if we seize it, it’s over. That option remains on the table.”
\n\n In 1980, nine months after 52 American were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the columnist Jack Anderson revealed that Kharg Island was the primary target of a US invasion plan presented to then president Jimmy Carter. “Kharg Island is the site of the oil terminal through which 90 percent of Iran’s crude is pumped into tankers for export,” Anderson wrote. “Not long after the U.S. hostages were seized in Iran, contingency plans were developed for an assault on Kharg Island.”
\nAfter Carter was defeated the New York Times reported in a 1981 account of the hostage crisis that the Pentagon plans for military action against Iran, included a naval blockade, mining its harbors, and seizing of the huge oil depot on Kharg Island. “The closest Mr. Carter came to ordering such action,” he told the Times, “was on Nov. 20, 1979, 14 days after the seizure, when the Ayatollah was publicly threatening to put the hostages on trial for espionage.”
\nCarter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, whose campaign was believed by some Carter aides to have cut a secret deal with Iran’s leaders to prolong the hostage crisis and prevent their releaser in a pre-election “October surprise” that could have swayed the 1980 election, also left Kharg untouched during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
\n“Although Iraqi forces struck some terminals and tankers during the eight-year war, Kharg remained largely operational and damage was typically repaired quickly, demonstrating that disabling it would require sustained, large-scale attacks,” JP Morgan said in a note reported by Reuters on Monday.
","cleanBody":"Just 24 hours before Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s Kharg island, a vital oil hub home to 10,000 people, one of the president’s favorite cable news pundits suggested that seizing the island could end the war and make it safe for shipping through the strait of Hormuz to resume. Iran exports about 90% of its crude oil through facilities on the island, which is about 20 miles off the mainland in the Persian Gulf. “We might not get what we got in Venezuela, but as long as Iran’s completely disarmed, and can’t threaten America and the strait with missiles, drone and nukes, the president will take the win,” Jesse Watters told his Fox News viewers Thursday night. “We also have Kharg island, 15 miles off Iran’s coast, their main export terminal, essentially the country’s cash register,” Watters added. “Kharg’s Iran’s oil lifeline; if we seize it, it’s over. That option remains on the table.”\nIn 1980, nine months after 52 American were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the columnist Jack Anderson revealed that Kharg Island was the primary target of a US invasion plan presented to then president Jimmy Carter. “Kharg Island is the site of the oil terminal through which 90 percent of Iran’s crude is pumped into tankers for export,” Anderson wrote. “Not long after the U.S. hostages were seized in Iran, contingency plans were developed for an assault on Kharg Island.” After Carter was defeated the New York Times reported in a 1981 account of the hostage crisis that the Pentagon plans for military action against Iran, included a naval blockade, mining its harbors, and seizing of the huge oil depot on Kharg Island. “The closest Mr. Carter came to ordering such action,” he told the Times, “was on Nov. 20, 1979, 14 days after the seizure, when the Ayatollah was publicly threatening to put the hostages on trial for espionage.” Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, whose campaign was believed by some Carter aides to have cut a secret deal with Iran’s leaders to prolong the hostage crisis and prevent their releaser in a pre-election “October surprise” that could have swayed the 1980 election, also left Kharg untouched during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. “Although Iraqi forces struck some terminals and tankers during the eight-year war, Kharg remained largely operational and damage was typically repaired quickly, demonstrating that disabling it would require sustained, large-scale attacks,” JP Morgan said in a note reported by Reuters on Monday.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4b3958f086d5b46c0281f","title":"Trump's Air Force One traveling companions include his wife, father-in-law and aide indicted in classified documents case","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-14T01:29:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-14T01:29:12Z","body":"The White House released a list of family members and close aides traveling to Florida with Donald Trump on Air Force One this evening.
\nIn addition to his wife, Melania Trump, the president is accompanied by his father-in-law, Viktor Knavs who is just two years older than his son-in-law.
\nOthers on the flight include: the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who tried and failed to conceal from the public that he once visited Trump’s former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, on the late child sex offender’s private island.
\nOne of the aides on the flight is Walt Nauta, a former US Navy valet to Trump during his first term, who was indicted along with Trump by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023 for allegedly helping Trump retain and hide boxes of classified documents at his beach club, Mar-a-Lago, when he was not president.
\nThe traveling party also includes Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp, the only two aides who are reported to have permission to post in Trump’s name on his Truth Social account.
\nScavino, a deputy chief of staff, started as Trump’s golf caddy and is widely credited with orchestrating his social media presence.
\nHarp left her job as a host on the far-right One America News channel in 2022 to become what some colleagues called Trump’s “human printer”, because she carried around a portable printer to provide her boss with hard copies of social media posts, articles and conspiracy theories flattering him and demeaning his rivals.
\nIn 2023, a half-dozen people around Trump told the New York Times that Harp had written a series of letters to Trump that unnerved people around him.
\n\n","cleanBody":"The White House released a list of family members and close aides traveling to Florida with Donald Trump on Air Force One this evening. In addition to his wife, Melania Trump, the president is accompanied by his father-in-law, Viktor Knavs who is just two years older than his son-in-law. Others on the flight include: the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who tried and failed to conceal from the public that he once visited Trump’s former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, on the late child sex offender’s private island. One of the aides on the flight is Walt Nauta, a former US Navy valet to Trump during his first term, who was indicted along with Trump by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023 for allegedly helping Trump retain and hide boxes of classified documents at his beach club, Mar-a-Lago, when he was not president. The traveling party also includes Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp, the only two aides who are reported to have permission to post in Trump’s name on his Truth Social account. Scavino, a deputy chief of staff, started as Trump’s golf caddy and is widely credited with orchestrating his social media presence. Harp left her job as a host on the far-right One America News channel in 2022 to become what some colleagues called Trump’s “human printer”, because she carried around a portable printer to provide her boss with hard copies of social media posts, articles and conspiracy theories flattering him and demeaning his rivals. In 2023, a half-dozen people around Trump told the New York Times that Harp had written a series of letters to Trump that unnerved people around him. “You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one of the letters, which were seen by The New York Times. The letters’ authenticity was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them. “I don’t ever want to let you down,” Ms. Harp wrote, thanking Mr. Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.” In another letter, she told Mr. Trump that she wanted to get back to “that synergy” she used to have with him, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.” “I want to bring you joy,” she wrote, “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4bafe8f08de00c5265e6b","title":"Trump told the Guardian in 1988: 'I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it.'","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-14T01:44:15Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-14T01:57:08Z","body":"“You are all that matters to me,” she wrote in one of the letters, which were seen by The New York Times. The letters’ authenticity was confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them.
\n“I don’t ever want to let you down,” Ms. Harp wrote, thanking Mr. Trump for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life.”
\nIn another letter, she told Mr. Trump that she wanted to get back to “that synergy” she used to have with him, where “we’d talk about everything and nothing.”
\n“I want to bring you joy,” she wrote, “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”
\n
Thirty six years before Donald Trump ordered military strikes on Iran’s vital oil hub, Kharg island, he told the Guardian that he would attack the island if he ever became president and Iran fired even one bullet at an American.
\nIn a 1988 interview with the Guardian, which Trump was reminded of during a Fox News interview on Friday morning, Polly Toynbee, now a Guardian columnist, asked the businessman what his platform would be if he ever did run for president.
\n“Respect,” Trump replied.
\n“We’re a second rate economic power, a debtor nation. We’re getting kicked around,” he added.
\nWhen Toynbee asked him what he would do about Iran, Trump replied:
\n\n\nI’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it. Iran can’t even beat Iraq, yet they push the United States around. It’d be good for the world to take them on.
\n
Seven years before that interview, the New York Times and other outlets had reported that Pentagon invasion plans for Iran drawn up during the 1979 hostage crisis started with an attack on Kharg Island.
","cleanBody":"Thirty six years before Donald Trump ordered military strikes on Iran’s vital oil hub, Kharg island, he told the Guardian that he would attack the island if he ever became president and Iran fired even one bullet at an American. In a 1988 interview with the Guardian, which Trump was reminded of during a Fox News interview on Friday morning, Polly Toynbee, now a Guardian columnist, asked the businessman what his platform would be if he ever did run for president. “Respect,” Trump replied. “We’re a second rate economic power, a debtor nation. We’re getting kicked around,” he added. When Toynbee asked him what he would do about Iran, Trump replied: I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it. Iran can’t even beat Iraq, yet they push the United States around. It’d be good for the world to take them on. Seven years before that interview, the New York Times and other outlets had reported that Pentagon invasion plans for Iran drawn up during the 1979 hostage crisis started with an attack on Kharg Island.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69b4c1268f08de00c5265e7e","title":"Closing summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-14T02:05:20Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-14T02:05:20Z","body":"This concludes our live coverage of US politics for the day, but for updates on the US war on Iran, please visit our Middle East crisis live blog. Here are the days developments:
\nDonald Trump order the US military to bomb military targets on Kharg Island, a vital oil transit point for 90% of Iran’s oil exports, and threatned to attack oil infrastructure if Iran does not re-open the strait of Hormuz.
\nTrump told the Guardian in a 1988 interview he was reminded of by Fox News on Friday that, should he ever become US president: “I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it.”
\nTwice on Friday, vice-president JD Vance cited secrecy to dodge questions about claims by unnamed administration officials that he is “skeptical” about or even opposed to the war on Iran.
\nSenator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called on the justice department to drop what he called the “weak and frivolous” criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, after a federal judge blocked a justice department subpoena of Powell on Friday.
\nIn the midst of armed hostilities with Iran in a war he started, Trump found time on Friday to concern himself with what he apparently considers a pressing issue: who will run the Kennedy Center, the living memorial to John F Kennedy created by Congress that Trump added his name to, while it is closed for renovations.
\nThis blog has now closed. Follow our Middle East blog here
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I don’t want to pay higher gas’: Motor City motorists feel pinch as gas prices surge","rawTitle":"‘I don’t give a shit about Iran. I don’t want to pay higher gas’: Motor City motorists feel pinch as gas prices surge","item":{"trailText":"Drivers in Detroit are unhappy with the spike in gas prices, even if reactions are mixed to the US-Israel war on Iran","body":"On a rainy Detroit afternoon at a gas station off Interstate 75, Victor Rodriguez watched the pump tally tick up as he filled up his F-250 diesel pickup truck for $4.19 per gallon. It totaled $110. “Ridiculous,” he said.
\nThe US-Israel war on Iran has crippled major portions of the oil supply chain, sending gas prices soaring as the conflict enters its third week. Rodriguez said he supports “getting rid of this thug”, referring to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US, but the cost is too high.
\nRodriguez said he jumped off the freeway while returning from an airport drop-off because he saw diesel advertised for $4.19 per gallon. The high price is a deal compared with the $5.00 per gallon he saw in Romeo, an exurb where he lives about a half-hour drive north.
\n“Nothing is worth higher gas prices, obviously,” Rodriguez said.
\nUS drivers have long enjoyed low fuel prices compared to their UK and European counterparts. The average price of a gallon of gas was about $3.80 in the US on 8 March, according to data collected by Global Petrol Prices. In Australia it was $4.90, the UK it was $6.90 and it was almost $9 in Germany.
\nAcross Michigan, gas prices have spiked by 60 cents per gallon over the most recent week analyzed by insurer AAA. Most have pushed even higher in recent days, topping $4.30 at one station near downtown Detroit, where prices are generally among the highest. Prices are up 27 cents across the US on average, according to AAA’s last figures.
\n\nGas prices matter in Michigan – a critical swing state that Donald Trump narrowly won twice and lost once. His promise to lower prices across the economy helped propel him back to power here in 2024. So far he has dismissed the nation’s pump pain as temporary. “I don’t have any concern about it,” the president told Reuters. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline price go up a little bit. And they haven’t risen very much.”
\nThat sentiment was not widely shared in Detroit, where those filling up at gas stations broadly expressed frustration over paying higher prices for the war, with some exceptions.
\n“I don’t give a shit about Iran. I don’t want to pay higher gas,” said Kevin Dass, an underemployed father of two in Detroit who paid $3.49 per gallon on Eight Mile Road, a busy thoroughfare that separates the city and suburbs. He is considering driving less, but options are limited – metro Detroit’s public transit system is sparse and unreliable.
\nA few miles north in Madison Heights, Del Carey shook her head and said the war is “unnecessary” as she paid $3.70 per gallon to fill up her SUV. “I think we should stay in our own business and leave theirs alone,” Carey said.
\nShe lives in nearby Warren, in Macomb county, a swing county that received national attention in recent years for its outsize role in deciding presidential elections. She said no one she knows is for the war. Though Carey has not started making any financial adjustments, she may cut back on dining out if high prices continue, reflecting a broader anxiety about the economic future.
\nRodriguez also lives in Macomb county. He said his liberal friends and neighbors are angered by the war and prices while conservative folks he knows are more supportive of Trump, but even they are struggling with elevated gas prices.
\nBut Trump isn’t the only one getting the blame. Rodriguez said he also blames the Opec oil cartel for price gouging, and Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a potential future Democratic presidential contender. Michigan just passed a gas tax to raise money for road repairs. That went into effect at the beginning of the year.
\n“We’ve got a problem with Trump and we’ve got a problem with Gretchen,” Rodriguez said.
\nEarl Striggan, who filled up at $3.60 a gallon at a station in Clawson, said he is categorically against war. “War is never worth it. It’s good for no one,” he said. He is not feeling the pinch yet, but he added that he can see what’s on the horizon. “If it continues on this slope, it’s going to get real dicey and a lot of people aren’t going to get in their car – they’ll stay in the house and that’s going to affect businesses,” he said.
\nImminent relief from higher gas prices doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. Oil spiked at $119 per barrel early this week, marking the first time prices surged past $100 per barrel since the July 2022 price shocks brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Prices are expected to rise further if Iran continues with its closure of the strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage through which many oil tankers must pass.
\n“If Hormuz traffic remained stopped, the monumental oil supply shock will manifest as sharp price spikes in wealthy nations that sap disposable incomes,” oil industry analyst Rory Johnston said. Poorer nations could see physical shortages, he added. Even if the strait reopened today, oil prices would be slow to come down.
\nNot everyone was upset about the prices, including Ken, an autoworker in Detroit who declined to give his last name. He acknowledged the hit people are taking, but said he trusts the president’s judgment.
\n“It’s been proven that Iran massacred thousands of their citizens, so I back Trump even though I didn’t vote for him – Iran needs to get the fuck on,” Ken said.
\nThe financial pinch is minimal for him so far, he said, because he makes enough to cover the costs. And, he added, “every little thing that happens makes our prices go up. This is just one more thing that happens, so I’m not overacting.
\n“Now if it goes up to $10 per gallon – then we might have a problem,” he added.
\n• This article was amended on 13 March 2026. The surge in oil prices in 2022 was precipitated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, not the Covid crisis as an earlier version stated.
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\nAmong other measures, they said the bill would delay safety reviews, give industry a prominent role in determining endangered species’ protections and grant the US Department of Agriculture new veto power over health safeguards for children, farm workers and the public.
\nOn the legal side, the legislation would give chemical manufacturers immunity from state-level lawsuits claiming they failed to warn people about their products’ health risks, especially cancer.
\n\nThe latter change would apply to nearly 60,000 chemicals covered by the country’s pesticide laws, including ingredients in common household products, like disinfectant wipes, spray cleaners or flea-control collars for pets.
\nA coalition of public health, consumer protection and farm advocacy groups from across the political spectrum are mobilizing against the bill. It is “a grotesque, record-breaking giveaway to the pesticide industry”, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which is lobbying against the provisions.
\nHartl added: “If Congress passes this monstrosity, it will speed our march toward the dawn of a very real silent spring, a day without fluttering butterflies, chirping frogs or the chorus of birds at sunrise.”
\nThe farm bill is an omnibus package that sets national policy for agriculture, nutrition and conservation every five years. The pesticide provisions included in this year’s bill represent the latest salvo in an industry blitz aimed at dramatically weakening pesticide regulations and eliminating legal liability.
\nThe intensifying operation coincided in part with the election of Donald Trump, who has appointed pesticide and chemical industry lobbyists to his administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It comes just as the president issued a controversial executive order that aims to grant immunity to pesticide makers from liability for the harms of glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller linked to cancer.
\nOne provision in the farm bill would give new authority to the US Department of Agriculture’s pest management office to review and potentially veto any environmental or human health safeguard put in place by the EPA, Hartl said.
\nThat could include measures to protect children – the Food Quality Protection Act gives the EPA authority to implement safety thresholds 10 times higher than those in place for adults. The USDA could also veto or change drift and handling restriction requirements intended to keep farm workers safe.
\nThe proposed bill would also create a “private sector work group” that helps shape pesticide policy, strategy, work plans or pilot programs related to protecting wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. The measure amounts to a “de facto veto”, Hartl said, and “undermines the integrity of the Endangered Species Act in an unprecedented manner”.
\nAdvocates are especially focused on provisions that provide liability shields from state-level lawsuits alleging pesticide companies failed to provide warning about their products’ health risks.
\nIndustry has long sought to kill these laws. Industry lobbyists are waging a campaign in Congress that is sowing confusion about what the farm bill provision would do, said Alexandra Muñoz, an independent toxicologist and Make America Healthy Again advocate who has met with legislators’ staff members.
\nThe EPA does not require the cancer warning on labels as some states do, because it has found that some pesticide ingredients, like glyphosate, do not cause cancer. Advocates say the EPA uses a flawed assessment that was subjected to industry influence, and they view state laws as the best line of defense against the substances’ dangers. Pesticide giants, like Bayer, have argued that states should not be able to require cancer warnings on labels because different labels cause confusion and lawsuits should be invalidated.
\nLanguage in the legislation states that labeling requirements “shall be applied to require uniformity in pesticide labeling nationwide”.
\nThat is causing significant confusion about the provision, Muñoz said. Some appear to believe the bill does not provide a legal shield to industry, but merely requires uniformity in pesticide labeling nationwide.
\n“This provision makes whatever label the EPA last approved – even if that label was based on fraudulent data – a liability shield for a poison,” Muñoz said. “What’s really happening is companies are liable because they’re failing to warn people that their product causes cancer.”
\nIndustry has also claimed ingredients like glyphosate will no longer be available if the immunity provision is not passed. That has raised fear among farmers that they won’t be able to access the products, which is creating political pressure, advocates say.
\nRepublican representative John Rose, who receives significant agribusiness political donations, summed up some lawmakers’ positions in his statement of support for the provision: “Pesticide labeling uniformity is not a liability shield; it is about making sure these products remain on the shelves for farmers who rely on this provision.”
\nAngela Huffman, director of Farm Action, a farm worker advocacy group, said of the provision: “In practical terms, this makes it harder for farm workers and farmers to seek compensation when products cause health harm or crop damage.”
\nHuffman continued: “When companies can’t be held accountable beyond federal labeling requirements, the costs of failure fall on rural communities instead of manufacturers.”
\nThe supreme court in April will hear arguments in a case covering whether EPA labels pre-empt state laws.
\nThe bill would also delay for another five years human health and safety reviews for hundreds of pesticides and ingredients. Federal law requires the EPA to review pesticides for safety every 15 years, taking into account new science. The agency missed its 2022 deadline and was granted an extension by Congress. Industry is seeking another extension.
\n“No one voted for Republicans to allow foreign-owned pesticide conglomerates to dominate the policies that impact the safety of the food every American eats,” Hartl said. “But this bill leaves no doubt that’s exactly who is calling all the shots.”
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\nThe review of FDA records by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) non-profit reveals that diverse products across the food pyramid, such as Capri Sun drinks, Kettle and Fire organic broth, Acme smoked fish, and Quaker Oats snack bars, use a range of substances that have not undergone review by regulators.
\nCompanies are using the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) rule that was developed in 1958 to allow ingredients such as salt or white vinegar to be used without a burdensome and needless review process.
\nBut companies are increasingly exploiting the rule and sending potentially dangerous new chemicals or substances into the food system without scrutiny, EWG found. Some of these have caused health problems. In 2022, food made with the GRAS ingredient tara flour was believed to have caused over 300 illnesses and 113 hospitalizations.
\nThe report is “a wake-up call for every American who assumes the FDA is reviewing the safety of chemicals in their food”, said Melanie Benesh, a report co-author and EWG’s vice president for government affairs.
\n“Instead, food and chemical companies are exploiting a loophole to keep both the government and the public in the dark,” Benesh said.
\nThe investigation found 111 substances of unknown safety, and the figure is likely higher, though the lack of a safety review does not necessarily mean an ingredient is dangerous The substances are used by popular brands such as Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, PepsiCo and Casita, federal records reviewed by EWG show.
\nGRAS is not the only route by which some chemicals are approved. Food colorings or chemicals added to packaging, for example, can be introduced to the food system via a different route, and those are not included in the report.
\nGRAS requires companies to demonstrate a new food ingredient is safe by providing widely accepted scientific evidence that’s publicly available. Notifying the FDA of that safety data ensures regulatory compliance, EWG wrote, but it is also voluntary – manufacturers can legally self-determine their products to be safe.
\nMeanwhile, some companies push the boundaries of what is “widely accepted” science and provide limited data or reviews from a small number of scientists convened by the companies, Benesh said.
\nCompanies do not report which products the substances are used in, so the investigation cross-checked their findings with the US Department of Agriculture’s FoodData Central database, which provides public ingredient information for about 4,000 products.
\nThe database showed 49 out of the 111 substances that were not reported. Among those are many known to be potentially dangerous, such as aloe vera extract, which is linked to cancer if ingested and is banned in some medicines over its toxicity.
\nThe investigation turned up 22 extracts, including that from mushroom, green tea, cinnamon and cocoa. While these ingredients appear anodyne and suggest added nutrition, extraction changes the chemical composition. The substances do not carry the same nutritional benefit and the impact on the body is often unknown, said Maricel Maffini, an independent food safety consultant and report co-author.
\nBenesh noted that the extract could be obtained with a toxic medium, such as benzene or methyl chloride, and the situation presents “complex questions” that are not always answered in GRAS.
\n“From a regulatory standpoint, you really want someone who understands the science to ask questions and make sure it’s safe before the food goes to market,” Benesh said.
\nCompounds called catechins found in green tea leaves have been linked to lower cancer rates and other health benefits. But the purified extract form, identified in over 900 products, has been linked to heart and brain defects, fetal leukemia, suppression of estrogen, and liver, kidney and intestinal toxicity.
\nMushrooms are considered a strong source of nutrients, but some mushroom extract is linked to liver inflammation. The report found 428 products that used one type of mushroom extract. The FDA in 2024 told companies to stop using a strain of mushroom extract that was causing people to hallucinate and have other nervous system problems, but it remains available in supplements.
\nThe report noted how cola makers used GRAS for caffeine, but in the early 2000s, it was added to highly alcoholic beverages, like Four Loko. After a rash of injuries and a death, the FDA effectively banned caffeine in alcoholic drinks in 2010.
\n“This is not a theoretical exercise – this has real life consequences,” Maffini said.
\nRobert F Kennedy Jr, the US health and human services secretary, whose “make America healthy again” movement advocates for fewer chemicals in the food system, has said he would close the GRAS loophole, but is instead proposing a weaker action.
\nThe substances the “impressive” EWG report identified likely “represent only the tip of an iceberg that undermines our health”, said Tom Neltner, executive director of the Unleaded Kids non-profit. He previously did work around GRAS and other FDA food safety rules.
\n“FDA – not industry – needs to be reviewing novel food chemicals for safety,” Neltner said in an email. “We need Kennedy to fulfill his promise to close a loophole that undermines the integrity of our food supply.”
\n","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"bodyImages":[],"discussionId":"/p/x4gtzn","section":"US news","id":"us-news/2026/mar/07/fda-food-product-safety-checks-substances","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dd444b725eb1ba423bf7c3930fd25f1c18273ad3/1311_0_4689_3750/master/4689.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=19ae6320341ddfe5bc5e96135b3cb73c","height":3750,"width":4689,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Companies are increasingly exploiting the generally recognized as safe rule to bring new substances into the food system. Photograph: Photograph: d3sign/Getty Images","credit":"d3sign/Getty Images","altText":"a woman holds up two jars in a grocery store","cleanCaption":"Companies are increasingly exploiting the generally recognized as safe rule to bring new substances into the food system.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: d3sign/Getty Images"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Review of FDA records by the Environmental Working Group reveals firms are exploiting rule to send new chemicals in food system
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\nIt has also played into a debate in the US around the role of local law enforcement amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown as many police departments – especially in large Democratic-run cities such as Detroit – have a policy of not co-operating with federal immigration operations.
\nThe decision not to fire the officers – who called Customs and Border Protection in part because the subjects did not speak English – came after the Trump administration and Michigan Republican leadership publicly condemned the department on social media.
\nThe reversal drew accusations that the city initially did the right thing, then buckled in the face of political pressure. The about-face was “surprising and troubling”, said Chris Gilmer-Hill, a community organizer who is running for state house in a district that partially represents Detroit.
\n“It appears that leadership at the DPD listened to [GOP Michigan house speaker] Matt Hall rather than listening to Detroiters,” Gilmer-Hill added. “The majority of Detroiters … we don’t support what ICE is doing and we don’t support what these officers did. So we need DPD to listen to what the people in Detroit want them to do.”
\nCBP has a larger presence in Detroit than Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in part because the city sits on a border, across the river from Windsor, Ontario. The controversy represents the latest flare-up in the broader battle over the Trump administration’s draconian immigration crackdown.
\nOn 16 December, Detroit police called border officers on an immigrant who was the victim of the crime, and who is now in deportation proceedings.
\nAnother incident on 9 February came to light when a local reporter caught the Detroit police officers and border agents standing together on a street in downtown Detroit. When the reporter approached and asked what they were doing, a Detroit police officer declined to comment before getting in her vehicle.
\nThe border agents got in their vehicle and drove off. Detroit police chief Todd Bettison announced the investigation days later, stating that a sergeant called Border Patrol to request translation services during a traffic stop.
\nBorder agents “conducted their investigation … determined that the individual was not a US citizen” and took the person, who is now facing deportation, Bettison said in a statement several days after the incident.
\nOn 25 February, bodycam footage of the incident leaked to YouTube shows the officers stating that the man, who is Venezuelan, could be “Pablo Escobar Jr”. One officer says the man “better start” speaking English because he’s “going to jail, buddy”.
\nThe translation justification is likely a pretext because Detroit offers translation services, and city ordinance is clear that officers are not supposed to call the federal agents, said Christine Suavé, the policy, engagement, and communications manager with the Michigan Immigrants Rights Center.
\nDetroit police officers know what will happen when they call border patrol, Suave said, and their actions have “devastating consequences” because they dramatically reduce trust in local police.
\n“It’s disappointing that politics got in the way of good police policy,” Suave said. “The chief was taking the right steps,” Suave added. The center has not discussed the issue with the department yet, Suave said, but it generally has been a “good partner” in addressing immigration groups’ concerns.
\nIn the days after the incident, police brass said they took the ordinance violation seriously.
\n“We’re just not in the immigration business. We never have been. Never will be,” assistant police chief Charles Fitzgerald told the Detroit city council on Tuesday. “It’s an extremely serious matter, and that’s how we take it. So that’s why, when the chief says what he says, he’s completely within his right to do so.”
\nOn 19 February, the Detroit police board of commissioners voted 10-0 to suspend the two officers for 30 days without pay.
\nSoon after, Republican leaders expressed opposition to the moves.
\nICE responded on 20 February on social media, offering the officers jobs.
\n“We have a place for you, patriots,” the agency’s official X account posted posted.
\nDHS later posted: “It’s absurd that two Detroit police officers would face punishment for alerting CBP about a criminal illegal alien – they are American heroes who chose public safety first.”
\nMeanwhile, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Mike Cox announced on X that he had set up a GoFundMe page that as of Wednesday had raised nearly $28,000.
\n“After decades of service to the people of Detroit, two respected police officers are now suspended without pay for 30 days,” the page said. “Not for misconduct, corruption, or neglect of duty, but for coordinating with federal law enforcement during routine police work.”
\nAmid the blowback and a lawsuit from one of the officers, a 27-year veteran, police chief Bettison announced he would not fire the officers. In a statement that day, Bettison said: “I am satisfied with the [board of commissioners’] decision, and I will not be pursuing termination of these two officers.”
\nIn the lawsuit, the officer defended their vacation, claiming the person provided a fraudulent electronic Michigan driver’s license, and the officer needed to verify the person’s identity because she’d been unable to do so with a department-issued fingerprint scanner, so she called border patrol.
\nThe leaked bodycam footage shows the officer stating that a lieutenant instructed her to call border patrol. The department had not said anything about the lieutenant.
\nDetroit mayor Mary Sheffield’s spokesperson said in a statement after the reversal that the mayor “supports” the policy against officers calling immigration agents.
\n“When the policy is violated, the chief and the board of police commissioners are responsible for determining the appropriate level of discipline, and Mayor Sheffield fully respects that process,” the statement said.
\nGilmer-Hill said the controversy highlights the need for stronger laws that spell out punishment for offending officers.
\nDetroit thrives on its diversity and should be welcoming to everyone, Gilmer-Hill said. “When there’s a constant threat that for some people, if you have a simple interaction with DPD, then that could throw your whole life up in the air – it is incredibly scary, but that’s part of the intention.”
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\nThe US Environmental Protection Agency’s Response Management Program (RMP) requires more than 12,500 high-risk facilities to develop protocols to prevent catastrophes, or limit fallout, and was largely designed to protect workers, first responders, and fence-line communities.
\nIn 2024, the Biden administration finalized a rule 12 years in the making that meaningfully strengthened protections. However, industry in early 2025 asked the incoming Donald Trump EPA to undo it because, chemical companies claim, its provisions are too expensive to implement.
\n\nThe Trump EPA is now moving to kill most of the 2024 rules after it eliminated a public website that informs communities and first responders which chemicals are in use at facilities. The White House has also targeted the Chemical Safety Board, which reviews accidents and develops actions to avoid a repeat.
\nThe US experienced a chemical accident that harmed humans or the environment every other day on average between 2004-2025. Among recent high-profile incidents are a Clairton, Pennsylvania steel plant explosion that injured 10, and a Roseland, Louisiana oil facility explosion that caused oil to splatter onto homes as far as 20 miles away.
\nThe Trump EPA is stacked with former industry lobbyists, and its attempt to dismantle the RMP is a case study in the administration “putting industry profits ahead of public safety”, said Marc Boom, a former EPA policy advisor and senior director with the Environmental Protection Network.
\n“These standards exist because catastrophic explosions and toxic releases are not theoretical risks – they are real events that devastate communities,” Boom said. About 180 million people live within several miles of a plant covered by the rules, and dozens have been killed in recent years.
\n![\"a](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/22c2ae9d95657ccd13ce9e8477e1fb54b0e43c1d/0_0_2200_1467/1000.jpg\")
\n The EPA told the Guardian it is strengthening the law by providing “clearer and more workable” rules.
\n“The proposed revisions maintain all core accident prevention protections while eliminating duplicative, contradictory, or unproven requirements that add cost and confusion without improving safety results,” an EPA spokesperson said in a statement.
\nCongress approved the program in 1990 under a Clean Air Act revision in response to a series of deadly chemical facility accidents across the globe that killed hundreds of people.
\nAmong other requirements, the law mandates that facilities take protective steps like installing technology that detects chemical releases, installing fire suppression systems, and developing a personnel plan for how each employee at the facility is to respond to an emergency.
\nPublic health advocates say the first law’s first iteration was not strong enough. In the wake of more fatal accidents in the years around 2010, including a Chevron explosion that injured 15,000 people, the Obama EPA developed new rules to strengthen the law.
\nThe first Trump administration derailed their implementation before the Biden administration redeveloped the Obama-era rules with even more improvements.
\nAmong other measures, the updated rules require hazardous facilities to put in place newer technology that would prevent disasters, put in place backup measures in case a first line of defense fails, and replace hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives. Measures could include kill switches easily accessible to employees, or automatic shut-offs that would kick in if a worker was incapacitated.
\nThe rules also require facilities to develop plans for dealing with “double disasters” that occur when hurricanes, earthquakes or wildfires hit a chemical facility. When Hurricane Harvey hammered Houston in 2017, the flooding shut down refrigeration units at the Arkema chemical plant, causing a massive explosion, forcing an evacuation around the plant, and injuring first responders who were not warned of the toxic fumes they would be encountering.
\n“The new Trump proposal erases most of those requirements,” said Emma Cheuse, an attorney with Earthjustice legal non-profit, a legal non-profit that has litigated on RMP issues. “These are common sense measures and yet they want to take them out completely.”
\n\nThe 2024 rule, which has not yet been fully implemented, also gives workers more power. It required chemical companies to consult with workers and unions when developing emergency responses, grants workers stop work authority, provides emergency response training, and provides a mechanism for workers to report unaddressed hazards.
\nThe Trump administration plan is an attempt to “shift the balance of power from workers to corporate executives”, said Rick Engler, a former EPA Chemical Safety Board member and labor advocate who founded the New Jersey Work Environment Council.
\n“This administration … fundamentally does not care about workers or that so many facilities have had catastrophic events that sometimes lead to mass layoffs and closures,” Engler said.
\nThe administration also took down a “public data tool” that provided a map of where hazardous facilities are located and lists the chemicals that are used in each. The law requires that information to be public, and may have helped avoid problems at the Arkema explosion.
\nBut the EPA has moved it to a reading room at one of its offices, citing national security concerns, Boom said. Advocates dismissed the security justification as pretext.
\n“This fits into the broader pattern,” Boom said. “They’re taking actions that are putting more people at risk … and we’re seeing across the board, but this is particularly egregious.”
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"bodyImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22c2ae9d95657ccd13ce9e8477e1fb54b0e43c1d/0_0_2200_1467/master/2200.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=bb03fb7a9491aaeb5847e17d92f3aa00","height":1467,"width":2200,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Firefighters tackle the site of an explosion at US Steel’s coke plant in Clairton, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Photograph: Abc Affiliate Wtae/Reuters","credit":"Abc Affiliate Wtae/Reuters","altText":"a firefighter putting out a fire ","cleanCaption":"Firefighters tackle the site of an explosion at US Steel’s coke plant in Clairton, Pennsylvania.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Abc Affiliate Wtae/Reuters"}],"discussionId":"/p/x4f444","section":"Environment","id":"environment/2026/feb/27/trump-fire-chemical-safety-system-epa","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5c153610d7e43c3d65e99bb2401aeff0d9189abe/0_0_1280_960/master/1280.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=5d3704963747e770f17f0af3dda15f11","height":960,"width":1280,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"A fire at a lubricant manufacturing facility in Roseland, Louisiana, last year. Photograph: Photograph: Environmental Protection Agency","credit":"Environmental Protection Agency","altText":"large amount of smoke rises in air below fire outside","cleanCaption":"A fire at a lubricant manufacturing facility in Roseland, Louisiana, last year.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Environmental Protection Agency"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"EPA rolls back rules as chemical firms claim provisions in RMP protection system too expensive to implement
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Voters and data disagree","rawTitle":"Trump says affordability crisis is over. Voters and data disagree","item":{"trailText":"Despite claims, polls and economists say tariffs and structural pressures keep US households under strain","body":"The affordability crisis is over, Donald Trump told the US on Tuesday. The president’s state of the union address put the blame for soaring prices squarely on the “dirty, rotten” lies of the Democrats and claimed prices were now “plummeting downward”.
\n“Soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago,” Trump said.
\nBut more than a year since he was sworn in to office, stubborn inflation and Trump’s chaotic trade policies, have done little to assuage consumers’ fears about the cost of living. Poll after poll shows that, as far as voters are concerned, “affordability” is still very much an issue.
\nOverall inflation unexpectedly eased to 2.4% in January from the same time last year, a drop from the previous 2.7% annual pace, but this is not what Trump campaigned on. The president promised to bring down prices on “day one”.
\nIn a December 2024 interview, the then-incoming president made a rare acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task ahead, conceding that it is “very hard to bring things down once they’re up”.
\n![\"a](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/c00be1633c02feee5a4d85b1f16213bee2eec737/0_0_7360_4912/1000.jpg\")
\n “As Trump predicted in 2024, we have not seen declines,” said Liz Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy with the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning economic thinktank.
\nPolls show large numbers of Trump’s own voters now blame him for the high cost of living. His tariffs – while far from as inflationary as many first feared – are also wildly unpopular.
\nAnd not without reason. A damning February New York Federal Reserve report found US consumers are overwhelmingly shouldering much of the economic pain in the form of higher prices from Trump’s tariff blitz.
\nBut some experts say the affordability problem is bigger – a knot of difficult issues including soaring utility bills, rising healthcare premiums, supply chain complications, real estate prices, and geopolitical turmoil is also hammering US consumers.
\nMeanwhile, the broad uncertainty has created an environment that major firms can exploit to raise prices more than needed, or pass on all the costs to consumers, as happened on a wide scale during Covid-era inflation.
\nAs Joe Biden found to his cost, the problems have no quick fix, and the Trump administration policies are driving prices the wrong way, economic observers say.
\n“There are a lot of things going on at once and it’s not good,” said Pancotti. “It’s all bad and we’ve been in this knot for long time.”
\nTrump has insisted that foreign companies are paying most of the tariff costs. But the New York Fed report tracked data across most of 2025 and found that the average tariff rate on US imports increased from 2.6% to 13%, and as much as 90% of the burden hit US firms and consumers.
\nThe findings have been born out by corporate reports. In earnings calls with investors, companies from Levi’s to Rubbermaid to BMW to Nike said they planned to raise prices in 2026, citing tariffs.
\nThe Fed detailed the problem in simple terms: If a hypothetical foreign company charges $100 for a good, and the US slaps a 25% tariff on the product, then the US company importing the good pays the additional $25.
\n![\"a](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/02aed55deda6643e5c64103b5cd62b303235f6c3/0_0_3645_2430/1000.jpg\")
\n That is either passed to customers or absorbed by the US company. The Trump administration has claimed that foreign exporters are largely paying the hypothetical $25, but a string of analyses have found that is largely not the case.
\n“In sum, US firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025,” the Fed report authors wrote.
\nMeanwhile, a tariff price tracker developed by Alberto Cavallo, a Harvard Business School professor who tracks daily online prices at major US retailers, shows the breadth in granular detail: Flooring prices are up 66%; clothing is up 18%; and home repair goods are up 10% versus pre-tariff trends.
\nGermany’s Kiel Institute looked at it a different way – its researchers checked on whether the tariffs were hammering European exporters, and found they are not. Only about 4% of the burden was shouldered by European exporters, while US consumers and importers absorbed 96%.
\nThe tariff effects can also be seen in the latest PPI report, noted Evan Wasner, an economist and doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The report shows significantly higher costs for capital equipment, materials for durable goods manufacturing, and primary metals, among other inputs.
\nNatural gas and electric is up 9.8% and 6.3%, respectively, over the last 12 months, federal data shows. Trump promised to halve electricity costs within his first year back in office. But the average US household paid nearly 6.7% more for electricity in 2025 than the year before, the Guardian found last month.
\nData centers are thought to be a driver of sharply increasing utility rates. The Trump administration has supported the data centers’ growth with no consumer and price protections, despite bipartisan demands for help. During his speech, Trump announced a “ratepayer protection pledges” – designed to protect Americans from rising electricity costs driven amid booming demand from AI buildout. Watchdog groups are skeptical, not least because many of the tech companies behind the projects are major donors and administration allies.
\nHealthcare costs are similarly soaring. Enrollees’ premium payments are expected to spike 114%, on average, in part driven by tariff costs that are hitting hospital services and the pharmaceutical industry especially hard.
\nThe healthcare increases are also due to the expiration of the Covid-era federal subsides, and the Trump administration and Republican leadership in Congress’s opposition to lowering premiums, observers say.
\n“These are structural issues … and there is not an immediate short-term solution,” Wasner said.
\n![\"a](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/3cee17ecfa09c8204bd37f552a09a836a8a2f85d/0_0_6000_4000/1000.jpg\")
\n At the same time, industries that are experiencing supply chain difficulties are being squeezed, Pancotti said. She pointed to the beef industry, where lower supply in the US cattle market has forced a pivot toward imports that are being hit with tariffs. This dynamic has especially been a problem in the agricultural sector, Pancotti said. The tariff pain is exacerbated by climate change-related problems that are hitting the nation’s food growers and producers.
\n“I just don’t see us getting any reprieve any time soon,” Pancotti said.
\nMeanwhile, some economists fear the chaos is once again opening the door for “seller’s inflation”, which is in effect a form of price gouging. During Covid-era supply chain shocks, many large companies passed on all their cost increases to consumers, while some added more on top because they could get away with it.
\nEconomy-wide cost shocks, like tariffs or covid-era supply chain disruptions, function as cover for companies to dramatically hike prices because all their competitors are also raising prices, and consumers expect the increases.
\nA Kroger executive infamously told investors in June 2022, “a little bit of inflation is always good for our business” because it could raise prices amid uncertainty.
\nPancotti and Wasner said there has not been a systematic review of earnings reports and corporate filings to determine if companies are again exploiting economic chaos, but Pancotti said Groundwork will be watching for evidence as more earnings calls happen in the coming weeks.
\nThe cumulative pain inflicted by these issues is especially felt by lower-income people because tariffs are essentially a regressive tax on consumption, the economist, Josh Bivens, wrote in a recent report that argued against Trump’s vague proposal to replace the federal income tax with tariffs.
\n“This means that with tariffs, people with lower incomes will pay a larger share of their earnings in taxes than high-income people,” Bivens wrote.
\nInflation is cooling, and it appears that many companies held back pushing through the full cost of Trump’s tariffs. The supreme court has thrown out much of Trump’s “liberation day” levies but he is pushing ahed with replacements. Corporate America is preparing to hike prices.
\nColumbia Sportswear said it renegotiated terms with suppliers, which delayed increases last year, but it has run out of room and plans to push up spring and fall 2026 prices by high single digits.
\nSome Levi’s jeans are increasing by $5-$10, the company said, and BMW is raising its prices by as much as $1,400, per its executives. Spice maker McCormick expects the tariffs to add $120m in gross costs between 2025-2026. Meanwhile, Nike expects $1bn in tariff costs during 2026, and told investors it will respond with “surgical price increases” to offset.
\n![\"a](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/e8b390145881252e4abae5e30c293198071aa858/0_0_3000_2000/1000.jpg\")
\n The tariff’s impact on US businesses has also been uneven. Many of the behemoths with large market share can negotiate discounts to lessen the tariffs’ impact. But smaller businesses do not have the same leverage over foreign suppliers. That coupled with its tighter profit margins creates more pressure on them to raise prices, experts say.
\nThe Fed report and tariff problems should not come as any surprise: the same Fed researchers found consumers largely paid the cost of Trump’s tariffs in 2018. There is no sign that price increases will slow any time soon. A December survey of 600 business leaders found more than half planned to increase prices through 2026’s first quarter.
\nOf those, most planned increases of 4% to 10%, while many were preparing for double-digit increases.
\nThe situation is tougher this time around for consumers who were partially insulated by rising wages during covid price hikes, Pancotti said. Now wages are effectively flat and data shows debt is broadly piling up.
\n“Pocketbooks have taken a beating and there’s no more room – the coffers are spent,” Pancotti said.
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4ep57","section":"Business","id":"business/2026/feb/27/trump-state-union-inflation-prices-affordability","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2326e3d93816d3a9a40ff283907bdc806710d73c/0_0_3000_2000/master/3000.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=f04c9c4bd138d7d073fddd6f8fee5c47","height":2000,"width":3000,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"People rush to get groceries after waiting in line for the opening of a Trader Joe's grocery store on 22 February 2026 in New York City. Photograph: Photograph: Ryan Murphy/Getty Images","credit":"Ryan Murphy/Getty Images","altText":"people shop for groceries","cleanCaption":"People rush to get groceries after waiting in line for the opening of a Trader Joe's grocery store on 22 February 2026 in New York City.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Ryan Murphy/Getty Images"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Despite claims, polls and economists say tariffs and structural pressures keep US households under strain
","webPublicationDate":"2026-02-27T11:00:39Z","style":{"navigationColour":"#005689","navigationDownColour":"#4bc6df","navigationButtonColour":"#005689","ruleColour":"#4bc6df","headlineColour":"#005689","quoteColour":"#999999","standfirstColour":"#676767","metaColour":"#999999","dividerColour":"#dcdad5","backgroundColour":"#ffffff","savedForLaterTrueColour":"#005689","savedForLaterFalseColour":"#999999","kickerColour":"#63717a","colourPalette":"analysis"},"lastModified":"2026-02-27T20:43:51Z","listenToArticle":{"uri":"https://mobile.guardianapis.com/uk/audio/business/2026/feb/27/trump-state-union-inflation-prices-affordability","durationInSec":624},"bodyImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c00be1633c02feee5a4d85b1f16213bee2eec737/0_0_7360_4912/master/7360.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=b113103bf5d8325cf648e9dc1b4a3f54","height":4912,"width":7360,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"A local resident shops at a supermarket on February 20, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia. The U.S. economy’s growth slowed to a 1.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2025. Photograph: Photograph: China News Service/Getty Images","credit":"China News Service/Getty Images","altText":"a person in a grocery store ","cleanCaption":"A local resident shops at a supermarket on February 20, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia. The U.S. economy’s growth slowed to a 1.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2025.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: China News Service/Getty Images"},{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/02aed55deda6643e5c64103b5cd62b303235f6c3/0_0_3645_2430/master/3645.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=3150b8208a104c08d22004c1298ab16a","height":2430,"width":3645,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Consumer PricesCancellations and delays of new US datacenters have increased as the artificial intelligence boom runs up against a slate of issues, including supply chain snags, energy shortages and tariff-induced restraints.
\nGrassroots opposition from local communities has also derailed some plans, and some investors have grown wary of datacenters amid fears of an AI bubble.
\nDozens of plans for datacenters were killed or delayed in December or January, according to reports from the investment research firm MacroEdge and climate news outlet Heatmap. MacroEdge’s research identified 26 cancellations through January – up from one in October.
\nThe complex knot of issues raises questions about the US’s ability to quickly facilitate the datacenter boom. Because the increase in production has been powering US growth over the last 18 months, major delays could have broader economic implications, MacroEdge’s chief economist, Don Johnson, wrote.
\n“The [Trump] administration is going to be scrambling to find its next growth engine as the datacenter machine winds down as a tailwind,” Johnson wrote.
\nDozens of proposals for new hyper-scale datacenters, which house the infrastructure for artificial intelligence, have been proposed across the US. The centers can consume as much power as the largest US cities, meaning grids need to rapidly expand their infrastructure, adding transformers, circuit breakers, high-voltage cables, steel poles and other pieces of equipment, to connect datacenters to the grid.
\nConnecting to the grid is “the No 1 challenge we’re seeing”, Marsden Hanna, head of energy and sustainability for Google, said at a utility industry conference last month.
\n“We have utilities in many markets telling us four or five, sometimes 10 years to interconnect,” Hanna said, adding that one utility told Google it would take 12 years just to study the interconnection timeline.
\nWhile the reports suggest an increase in cancellations, tracking the number of proposals and cancellations is difficult, said Douglas Jester, managing partner at the 5 Lakes Energy consulting firm in Michigan, which works on regulatory issues around datacenter construction.
\nNo agency keeps tabs on proposals, and the datacenter planning process is long and complex, Jester said. When a datacenter developer such as Google or Oracle wants to build a facility, it approaches energy utilities in multiple regions to study cost and how long it might take to connect to the grid.
\nDevelopers often propose the same plans in multiple locations around the US and move forward where the costs and conditions are most favorable. That makes it difficult to gauge exactly when a project is legitimately under way. Regardless, centers are increasingly running up against mounting energy grid obstacles, especially a shortage of energy, Jester said.
\nMany grids simply cannot generate enough power, or add it in time to meet datacenter developers’ timelines, and the process of adding power supply to the grid is slow.
\nThat is partly because it can take regional grid operators, which coordinate the local energy utilities’ power generation and transmission, up to five years to review how proposed gas plants, solar fields or other generation sources could affect the grid, Jester said.
\nThis protracted process was already slowing the nation’s transition to clean energy. It can take five or more solar installations to generate the same amount of power as one gas plant, which means an increase in the review backlog as the clean energy transition accelerates. The sudden datacenter demand piles on to this already difficult problem.
\n“The interconnection process is really getting bogged down, and it has been a problem even before datacenters,” Jester said.
\nThe review process primarily ensures the new additions will not disrupt supply in the grid, but the Texas grid operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), has a better approach, Jester said. In short, Ercot – which operates with little federal oversight compared with other operators – quickly adds new energy generation to its grid, then addresses problems if they arise.
\nMeanwhile, the surge in new datacenter projects has hammered energy grid supply chains still recovering from Covid-era snags and that are strained from the clean energy buildout, said Qiuhua Huang, an associate professor of electrical engineering with the Colorado School of Mines, which studies grid supply chain issues.
\nDemand for grid equipment, like transformers, has spiked, but only one plant in the US produces the type of steel needed for many of the pieces. Copper shortages are also slowing the buildout, Huang said.
\nHigh-voltage transformers that once had lead times of six months now take up to four years to manufacture, for example. Relatedly, a skilled labor shortage represents another restraint, industry experts say.
\nThe US utility industry has leaned heavy on utility infrastructure imports from China and other countries, but demand abroad has also spiked. Donald Trump’s tariffs have also made the US a less attractive market for foreign producers as prices continue to increase, Jester said. Data shows transformers’ costs are up to six times above pre-2022 levels.
\n“The tariffs are exacerbating, if not causing, the problem in the US,” Jester said.
\nGrid limitations have stretched the timelines for the new datacenters. PJM, the largest grid operator in the US, is pushing connection times back as far as 2030, MacroEdge noted.
\n“This, of many factors, should put caution into investor minds,” Johnson wrote.
\nSome hedge funds and other datacenter investors are growing nervous. Blue Owl, an investor in the highly controversial Saline Township datacenter in Michigan, backed out on its $10bn investment in December. Though Oracle said it would not stop the project, Bain Capital and other investors seem similarly hesitant.
\nSome solutions are in the works, and steel manufacturers are scaling up production. Battery storage is becoming a viable alternative to new power generation, Jester said. Large-scale battery storage that is added to the grid can hold energy for later use, reducing the need for new power plants and grid infrastructure.
\nOracle recently proposed that such battery storage could help meet its goal to build a 1.4GW datacenter in Michigan, which would require as much power as Detroit, by 2027. DTE Energy, the monopoly utility that serves the region, is near grid capacity and probably could not install a gas plant or enough solar fields to meet that timeline, in part because the review process is so slow.
\nBig tech, which is far more resourced than the utility industry, is also developing new transformer technology that does not demand the same steel or infrastructure pieces, Huang said.
\n“It’s in the early phase of mass adoption, but datacenters have a much larger budget than utilities, so they can better handle those technology adoptions, and that will diversify the supply chain,” Huang said.
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\nThe FDA in early February announced it would allow food makers to claim “no artificial colors” as long as the dyes are not petroleum-based, but health experts say even some naturally based additives present health risks, and the labeling would deceive consumers.
\nThe move comes after the agency in 2025 began pressuring companies to phase out petroleum-based dyes, but stopped short of putting in place a ban. Removing toxins from food is a cornerstone of the Robert F Kennedy-led Maha movement. Kennedy is the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, which holds the FDA, and he quickly zeroed in on dye upon taking office last year.
\nThe FDA agreed to what critics label a “handshake” with big food to stop using the dyes, though Kennedy framed it as “an understanding”. Some candy makers still are refusing to fully stop using artificial dyes.
\nThe latest decision around labeling “is going to cause confusion and allow some companies to mislead folks about the colors that are present in their foods”, said Thomas Galligan, principal scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which researches food dyes.
\n“It’s frustrating, especially when the rhetoric suggests they are solving the problem, but in practice they’re just letting industry do whatever they want,” Galligan continued, adding that the rules were already so loophole-ridden that there were other ways that companies could deceive consumers. The most effective measure to protect consumers is a ban, he said.
\nKennedy defended the move in a statement: “This is real progress. We are making it easier for companies to move away from petroleum-based synthetic colors and adopt safer, naturally derived alternatives. This momentum advances our broader effort to help Americans eat real food and Make America Healthy Again.”
\nConsumer Brands, a trade group for packaged foods, applauded the move, stating that it “is a positive example of the FDA taking the lead on ingredient safety and transparency”.
\nKelly Ryerson, Maha advocate and author, praised the FDA for taking the first step to pressure industry to move away from dyes, calling it “enormous”. But she told the Guardian she was concerned about confusion over the labeling, and added: “I would like to see these things banned permanently.”
\nSynthetic dyes are linked to ADHD and hyperactivity in children, among other health harms. The FDA banned Red Dye 3 in January 2025, before Kennedy took over the agency, because studies found it probably caused cancer in lab rats.
\nWest Virginia has since banned some synthetic dyes, and Texas passed a law to require warning labels. More than 25 states are considering new bans on synthetic food dyes and other food chemical additives.
\nAmong naturally derived dyes are beet juice, beet powder, algae and butterfly pea flower. While most naturally derived dyes are generally safer than petroleum-based, some can be dangerous.
\n“As a foundational concept, natural doesn’t mean safe,” Galligan said, which contradicts the average consumers’ assumptions.
\nHe noted that lead and arsenic, two of the planet’s most toxic substances, are naturally occurring, though they are not used in food dyes.
\nAmong natural dyes used in foods that advocates find most concerning is titanium dioxide nanoparticles added to brighten whites, or effectively serve as a primer for other colors. The toxic substance is banned in the European Union for use in food because regulators could not conclude that it is safe, and raised concern that it damages genes.
\nIt is a potential carcinogen that accumulates in organs and is linked to neurotoxicity, intestinal inflammation, reproductive damage, birth defects and other health impacts.
\nTitanium dioxide is widely used across the US food system. The Environmental Working Group non-profit has found nearly 2,000 products in which the chemical may be used, though some estimates are as high as 11,000. The largest subgroups included candy, cakes, cookies and desserts or dessert toppings.
\nThe FDA so far has ignored a petition filed in 2023 by five major US public health advocacy groups that asks it to withdraw its approval of titanium dioxide for use in food.
\nMeanwhile, naturally derived caramel color can contain 4-MEI, an impurity linked to cancer that is produced during processing. Food companies will be able to state that products that contain these ingredients have “no artificial flavors”.
\nThe EWG co-founder Ken Cook said the shift ultimately represented “another broken promise” from Kennedy and Trump.
\n“They pledged outright bans on dangerous food chemical additives to their Make America Healthy Again base,” Cook said.
\n“Instead, states are doing the hard work to protect families, while Kennedy settles for handshake deals with big food and chemical companies – agreements with no real accountability and no guarantee they’ll be honored.”
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4djjt","section":"US news","id":"us-news/2026/feb/20/fda-artificial-colors-food","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/58552ee1be6da1ad2f5b1154ae359dc5ba73612c/540_0_5419_4335/master/5419.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=3ab45b091e52d7a0122127b36822c5b4","height":4335,"width":5419,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Robert F Kennedy Jr with Trump at the White House last year. Photograph: Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters","credit":"Kevin Lamarque/Reuters","altText":"Men at lectern","cleanCaption":"Robert F Kennedy Jr with Trump at the White House last year.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Experts say new labeling could deceive consumers as dangerous substances still allowed under new rules
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\nMajor polluters typically include companies that are among the largest in the oil, gas, coal and chemical industries.
\nRecords show the EPA filed just one Clean Air Act consent decree compared with 26 in the first year of Trump’s first term, and 22 during Biden’s first year. Consent decrees are the legal mechanism by which the agency and US Department of Justice enforce environmental laws against major polluters.
\nThe agency appears to have similarly slowed enforcement of Superfund laws, which cover the cleanup at the nation’s most polluted sites. It filed just seven consent decrees, down from 31 under the first Trump administration.
\n\nThe number of Clean Water Act enforcement actions has also dramatically declined from a peak of 18 during Biden’s first year, to four during the second Trump administration, the analysis by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit found.
\nThe EPA’s enforcement program “is dying on the vine, and that’s intentional”, said Tim Whitehouse, Peer’s executive director and a former EPA attorney.
\n“Without an adequate enforcement program that provides deterrence to polluters, the laws become voluntary, and when laws become voluntary many companies choose to ignore them because they know there are no consequences,” Whitehouse said. “That means more pollution for communities near the facilities and more profits or the polluters.”
\nThe analysis looked only at major cases. When the EPA investigates a major case, it forwards the allegations to the justice department, which brings cases against the polluter in federal court and seeks a settlement.
\nMajor cases are typically brought against large corporations, including Volkswagen, which in 2017 agreed to pay $1.4bn for a Clean Air Act violation for installing “defeat devices” that evaded emissions tests. In Indiana in 2023, the EPA found BP to be emitting dangerous levels of highly toxic VOCs into the air and required it to pay $250m in penalties and corrective measures. Norfolk Southern, which was responsible for the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck, settled for $335m for Clean Water Act violations, including penalties and cleanup.
\nSimilar blockbuster settlements are now rare, industry observers say.
\nAn EPA spokesperson defended the administration’s enforcement record in a statement to the Guardian.
\n“Unlike the last administration, we are focused on achieving swift compliance and not just overzealous enforcement intended to cripple industry based on climate zealotry,” the spokesperson said. “One erroneous report from a leftwing group funded by dark money does not change the facts.”
\nA current EPA enforcement employee who declined to use their name for fear of retribution said there was a significant difference between “compliance” the Trump administration is touting and “enforcement” with punitive measures. The latter is a deterrent, the former largely is not, the employee said.
\n“They want us to do more of what they call compliance rather than enforcement – inspect a company, and say ‘Hey maybe do these things better,’ and maybe give them a slap on the wrist, but do not impose significant changes or fines,” the employee said.
\nThe employee reviewed Peer’s data and said it aligned with what they see anecdotally. They said several actions by the administration over the last year were driving the enforcement decline.
\nTrump’s political appointees at the top of the EPA are more closely scrutinizing investigators’ work. Enforcement agents must send a case far up the chain of command if a company disagrees with an investigation’s findings. Similar approval is required if an EPA investigator wants to require action beyond what the law requires. That is important, the employee said, because the law often does not require the steps that are needed to fully correct a violation.
\nThe requirements have also caused a review backlog that is delaying cases, the employee said.
\nMeanwhile, the Trump administration has at times effectively paused enforcement action against the energy industry. A 12 March EPA memo stated that enforcement actions will no longer “shut down any stage of energy production”.
\nAt the same time, staffing levels in the enforcement division are down by as much as 30% in some regions, the employee estimated, while the number of justice department environmental division attorneys is down by about 50%.
\nThe sum of these issues creates a “broad chilling effect” on enforcement, the employee said. Investigators are afraid to take bold action and try to not attract political appointees’ attention, they said.
\n“That means that the American people are at risk of health impacts from pollution of air, water, and companies are going to feel emboldened to get away with more,” the employee said. “They know that the people at the EPA and DoJ are friendly to industry and aren’t going to enforce the laws against them.”
\nThe EPA spokesperson said the agency had concluded more cases in the first year than the Biden administration did in its first year, and the agency would be publishing those figures soon.
\nHowever, the Peer report looked at major cases, not all cases. The EPA handles minor enforcement as a civil administrative case. This has included issues such as a mechanic shop that illegally dumps small amounts of a pollutant into a stream. The cases are investigated by EPA inspectors, who may issue a notice of violation. They attempt to reach a settlement in which the polluter must agree to a remedy and potentially a fine.
\nIn its report, the Peer addressed that claim, writing “administrative enforcement is a good way to handle violations that can be resolved quickly and are less likely to be repeated”.
\n“But they are not well suited for large, complex cases that warrant higher penalties or the substantial, long-term remedies needed both to correct any violations and to prevent their recurrence,” the report states.
\nThe attack on enforcement is part of a broader effort to weaken the EPA, Whitehouse said. The administration has also attacked scientific research and protective regulations.
\n“The Zeldin EPA is conducting itself as a subsidiary of oil and chemical industries and other big, powerful industries in the US,” Whitehouse said. “It is really doing the work of those types of industries, and, bigger picture enforcement is a large part of that.”
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