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Thursday, July 16, 2026

Senior ICE officials are blaming President Donald Trump's demand for mass arrests for a wave of deadly shootings by immigration agent ... read more


In a hearing exchange with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Kevin Warsh, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed), refused to disclose to whom he sold over $100 million worth of shares in private investment vehicles just days before taking office at the Fed.


Wednesday, July 15, 2026

541 days into Donald Trump's term the president's net approval rating is -23, down 0.3 points since last week. 36% approve, 59% disapprove, 4% not sure


The Justice Department can't access New York's unredacted voter roll, a judge said in handing the federal government yet another loss in court in its quest to obtain the lists from all 50 states. read more


"You heard the president talk about how he wants to effectively double the funding for national defense. Look, we live in dangerous times. We're fighting communism on our own shores, and we're fighting evil terrorists and tyrants around the world, and we have to be able to protect our national security," Johnson said. read more


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More: Sen. Warren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, the Federal Reserve has long been plagued by a culture of corruption and coziness with Wall Street.

Over the last five years, at least six senior Fed officials have been implicated in serious ethics scandals related to personal stock trading and self-dealing.

But instead of trying to repair this broken culture, I'm concerned that you seem to be embracing it.

At the time of your nomination, you owned more than $100 million worth of shares in private investment vehicles called the Juggernaut Funds and THSDFS LLC. And, you refused to disclose the underlying assets to the Senate and to the public. You say now that you've sold those shares. In other words, someone wrote you a check for more than $100 million days before you entered office. Chair Warsh, who wrote that check?

Chair Warsh: Senator Warren, this is a discussion you and I had in the public square seven weeks ago. And I'm thrilled to tell you that I've fully honored the obligations I had under the Office " the agreement I had with the Office Government Ethics. And there's continued disclosure which I'm happy to make as consistent with the agreement.

Sen. Warren: I asked you a very specific question. Who gave you $100 million right before you were sworn in. Was it a billionaire who has business with the Fed? Was it Stanley Druckenmiller, who has made billions of dollars betting on what the Fed does? Or was it a different billionaire? Who gave you the money?

Chair Warsh: I will fully comply with the Office of Government Ethics.

Sen. Warren: That's not an answer.

Chair Warsh: Well it is an answer actually, Senator.

Sen. Warren: No, it's not.

Chair Warsh: Because there are obligations and I will satisfy them completely.

Sen. Warren: It's $100 million right before you were sworn in, and you won't tell the American people where it came from.

More: According to the joint task force, all National Guard members who come to D.C. have been deputized as special police by the U.S. Marshals Service and issued a firearm, which is rare for a domestic National Guard deployment. Guard troops are not authorized to make arrests, although they can detain someone until arresting officers arrive.

The troops in D.C. are largely performing what are called "presence patrols," walking in small groups around popular areas of the city to act as a deterrent for crime and allow law enforcement to focus on other areas.

But two different studies " including one out this week by the progressive Center for American Progress " have both found that the National Guard presence in D.C. has had little to no effect on violent crime and that the recent drop in crime would have likely happened regardless of the troops.

"These trends have been going on since before the deployment, since before Trump's second inauguration even. It should tell people that actually this is not part of the solution," says Chandler Hall, associate director on the public safety team at CAP and lead researcher of the study.

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As the length of the deployment, as well as the size, increases, so does the cost to taxpayers. With the current summer surge, the cost per day is hovering around $3 million, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Using that number, the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonpartisan watchdog, estimates the deployment with this new 2029 extension will cost somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3.4 billion in total, depending on how many troops remain in the city.

More: Sari Bashi, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, said publishing the photo itself constituted a war crime, because of the prohibition under international humanitarian law against depicting prisoners or detainees in humiliating states.

"There's the posting, and then there's what it appears to show," she said. That, too, may be a war crime, she said: "The way in which he was confined raises strong concerns that the method of confinement was a form of punishment that could amount to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, or even torture," depending on how much the man suffered.

Israeli soldiers have frequently posted apparently incriminating photographs and videos of themselves during the war. Rights groups say it reflects a cultural shift in the military that is at odds with its insistence that such incidents break with its rules and norms.

"The soldiers are taking their cue from the highest levels," Ms. Bashi said. She recalled that the defense minister, Israel Katz, had met with and was said to have apologized to five reservists after charges were dropped against them in a case involving the abuse of a Palestinian prisoner who suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and a torn rectum.

"If I were a foot soldier," Ms. Bashi said, "I would think this is all OK and even desirable."

Oneg Ben Dror, a project coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, who also said the published photo was evidence of two war crimes, said the mistreatment depicted was exceptional only because it had been so clearly documented. Thousands of Palestinians have testified to having been tortured in Israeli prisons and military camps, she said.

"It's not a unique case," she added. "This time, the soldiers took a photo of it."

Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Association, said the photo showed how Israeli soldiers acted with impunity and underscored the "violence and brutality" that detainees have endured.

She also argued that the original dissemination of such a photo was "an effort to shape public consciousness through intimidation and psychological deterrence by using images such as these and the impact they have on Palestinians more broadly."

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