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Who Do You Serve
Declaring, "I believe in America, I believe in us," an active duty Air Force major was arrested Wednesday for a non-violent act of civil disobedience after he publicly called for Trump to be impeached, removed and convicted for his scores of impeachable offenses. Citing the "foundational oath" he took to defend the country "against all enemies foreign and domestic" - most vitally a lawless president - Major Jason Watson insisted, finally, "The bill must come due."
Watson's action came after a press conference with advocacy groups including About Face Veterans, Defenders of Our Republic, Removal Coalition, its newly launched Remove the Regime, and Free Speech For People, which has gathered over a million signatures urging Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump for his hundreds of crimes. Also present was Rep. Al Green, the only member of Congress to have filed impeachment articles. Declaring this "an existential moment for our nation," Free Speech president John Bonifaz praised Major Watson for "the kind of courage our democracy demands (in) stark contrast to those who continue to look away as President Trump commits unprecedented abuses of power."
Watson introduced himself by citing his 17-year career in the military before swiftly adding, "Who I am is immaterial. In the grand scheme of things I'm a nobody. What's more important is what I have to say, and the price I'm willing to pay to say it" - which is substantial. Thanking allies "working to restore responsible governance to our country," he repeated the "foundational" oath he first swore over 20 years ago, and has since repeated "many times since," to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," which "binds us all together as Americans." We have all "played a part in getting us into this mess," he added, but undeniably "the burden of culpability" falls most heavily on the executive branch, "and the bill must come due."
Matter-of-factly, he offered a hefty list of high crimes and misdemeanors: The "unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ authority" with military action against foreign countries, absent the requisite emergency scenario, in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran; the granting of power to an unelected person to shut down large swaths of the government; the detaining and sending of residents without due process to a foreign country; the abuse and murder of those exercising their First Amendment rights, etc etc. After each, he added, "For this, the president and vice-president must be impeached convicted, and removed." He was there not as a Democrat - "I am not a Democrat" - but to call on Americans to peacefully "join me in the defense of our republic."
Video of his speech then briefly cuts out; when it returns, he is walking slowly, deliberately, toward the Capitol steps, an area that is open to the public but where protest is prohibited. Several Capitol Police stand to the side, nervously watching. In somber, lonesome silence, he climbs the stairs; mid-way, he stops and holds up a sign that reads, "Impeach. Convict. Remove." The watching crowd cheers. After a brief huddle, a couple of officers arrest him. As he is led away, his hands cuffed behind him, his dignity intact, the crowd breaks into chants of "Shame!" and, "Who do you serve? Who do you protect?" Excellent questions. We, and many weary, grieving, enraged Americans, salute him and his good trouble.
Jul 02, 2026
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As Deadly Heatwave Scorches Europe, Fossil Fuel Giants 'Have Blood on Their Hands'
Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Belgium, and other European countries were under red-alert warnings on Tuesday as an alarmingly early heatwave continued to scorch the continent, underscoring the threat posed by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.
Météo-France, the country's official meteorological administration, said Tuesday that "further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year," as "sunshine continues to dominate across France, maintaining oppressive and exhausting heat throughout the country." In recent days, France has recorded dozens of deaths linked to the extreme temperatures, including two were children who died in a hot car and 40 people who drowned seeking relief from the heat.
“Heat is hurting children across Europe," Matilde Angeltveit, senior adviser and global climate advocacy lead at Save the Children, said Tuesday. "It affects their health and it is disrupting their education and the impact can sometimes be long term. This should be a joyous time as many children across Europe wrap up the school year, but for many it is not."
Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service said that while the ongoing heatwave is "remarkable for occurring so early in the year, this event is consistent with Europe’s rapid warming and with the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves already observed in summer."
"Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising by approximately 0.56°C per decade since the mid-1990s, more than double the global average," Copernicus noted.
Reuters observed Tuesday that Europe "was the continent furthest above its historic temperature norm on Monday."
"Heatwaves are no longer freak weather anomalies. They are now a recurring crisis inflicting suffering, claiming lives and fracturing our health systems and infrastructure," said Hans Kluge, European regional director for the World Health Organization, which estimates that extreme heat has killed more than 200,000 people across Europe over the past four years.
Campaigners said the current heatwave marks the latest evidence of governments' failure to rein in the fossil fuel industry, which has raked in massive profits this year thanks to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
"This isn’t a natural disaster," said Aaron Regunberg, director of the Climate Accountability Project at the US-based advocacy group Public Citizen, which declared in response to the European heatwave that oil giants "have blood on their hands."
"The fossil fuel industry’s pollution and decades of deception about the impact of burning fossil fuels has spurred this extreme heat, which has already killed multiple people," said Regunberg. "Decades ago, scientists at Exxon were discussing with other oil companies research connecting climate change with ‘suffering and death due to thermal extremes.’ These companies knew of evidence that their conduct would cause these harms, and orchestrated campaigns of climate denial to undermine that evidence. They should be held accountable.”
Areeba Hamid, the co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said political leaders "need to stop winging it on extreme weather and start treating it as the security and public health challenge it is."
"When classrooms become ovens, care homes overheat, transport starts to buckle and workers are forced to toil in dangerous temperatures, it’s clear the country isn’t ready," said Hamid. "Adaptation alone won’t be enough. Ministers must also stop fossil fuel giants from turning up the heat on our planet—and make them pay for the damage they are causing."
Jun 23, 2026
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More Than 5 Million People Have Lost Health Coverage Under Trump-GOP Law
Not even a year after President Donald Trump signed the largest healthcare cuts in US history into law, around five million Americans have lost insurance coverage, according to a report out Monday from Protect Our Care, which predicted that the crisis was "only going to get worse."
The massive budget and tax legislation passed by Republicans last July, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashed nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over the next decade while introducing tax breaks that are expected to hand an additional $1 trillion to the richest 1% of Americans.
“Five million and counting. That’s the human toll of the spiraling Republican healthcare affordability crisis,” said Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse. “Just one year after Trump and congressional Republicans made the largest cuts to healthcare in history to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations on Wall Street, millions have lost the care they depended on to stay alive and healthy."
Citing the most recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and state agencies, the report found that the number of Americans enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP had fallen to just 76.9 million, down from 80.8 million a year before—a decline of more than 3.8 million people.
Another 1.2 million are also estimated to have lost coverage due to the massive spike in premiums after Republicans voted not to renew tax credits for consumers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that lowered costs for Americans who purchased coverage through ACA marketplaces.
During open enrollment in 2025, 24.3 million Americans selected insurance plans through the ACA. This year, as the average premium was projected to more than double on average, the number of Americans enrolled through the ACA fell to just 23.1 million—a drop of nearly 1.2 million.
The millions of other families still enrolled in insurance through the ACA exchanges saw an average increase of $780, and according to KFF, it's only been that low because many families have opted to switch to cheaper, less comprehensive plans.
The loss of insurance coverage "is only a small piece of the puzzle," Woodhouse said.
"Millions more are making impossible choices every day to keep their coverage, including skipping rent or cutting back on groceries so they can see a doctor," he said. "Their pain and suffering are incalculable."
The report said the coverage losses over the first year are "just the beginning" and that "millions more will lose coverage once deeper cuts go into effect."
The full slate of changes to Medicaid from the GOP bill has not yet been enacted. Next year, many adult recipients will be required to submit proof that they are doing at least 80 hours of work or other qualifying activity each month in order to maintain benefits, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated could increase the uninsured population by 5.3 million by 2034.
Another paperwork hurdle, the requirement that certain Medicaid expansion enrollees prove their eligibility every six months, is expected to result in another 700,000 people becoming uninsured by 2034.
In total, CBO analyses estimate that over the next decade, roughly 15 million Americans would lose their insurance coverage as a result of the legislation.
"These are our neighbors, our friends, our loved ones. These are small business owners and farmers. These are seniors. Veterans. Moms," Woodhouse said. "These are millions of working people now scrambling to find insulin pumps, taking thousands out of retirement just to see a doctor for that cough that’s not getting better, or, worse, not getting care at all."
With healthcare costs now a top concern among voters—66% of whom said they were worried about affording it, according to a KFF poll in January—cuts to healthcare spending appear to be a glaring liability for Republicans entering the midterm elections.
Another KFF poll from April found that 37% of voters said they trusted Democrats to address healthcare costs, while just 26% said they trusted Republicans. Meanwhile, 67% of voters said they disapproved of the Trump administration's handling of healthcare costs.
"Every single day, the affordability crisis mounts, and more Americans will find themselves joining the five million struggling to keep up with skyrocketing healthcare costs," Woodhouse said. "The American people won’t forget this betrayal in November.”
Democrats have seized on Monday's report as part of their election pitch, including Rep. Greg Landsman, who faces a competitive reelection fight in Ohio's 1st Congressional District.
He wrote on social media Tuesday that Republicans "cut healthcare by nearly a trillion to pay for tax cuts for the super wealthy... five million people no longer have healthcare."
"The healthcare crisis in America is dominating the lives of millions, and will soon dominate all of our lives," he said. "We need a new Congress to restore people’s healthcare and to end this crisis. There is no other way."
Jun 23, 2026
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UN Creates 'AI for Good' Commission—Full of Big Tech Execs
A week after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on artificial intelligence companies to "come clean" about the full costs of power-sucking data centers, and as a UN panel on Wednesday released a report detailing the risks and impacts of AI, Axios revealed the creation of a related commission that's full of Big Tech executives.
"The UN and its International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are convening the AI for Good Global Commission, which will hold its first meeting on July 8 in Geneva, Switzerland," according to the outlet. It will be co-chaired by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, with other tech and policy leaders joining as members.
So far, Axios reported, they include ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Estonian President Alar Karis, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, Cohere co-founder Aidan Gomez, Microsoft president Brad Smith, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang, and AI and tech policymakers from Kazakhstan, Namibia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.
"AI is the most profound technological transition in history. And our values have to guide every step, because responsibility is the core of AI ethics," Benioff said. The commission will bring together "the people who build AI, deploy it, shape policy, and represent communities."
He added that "our inaugural meeting will focus on where this group is uniquely positioned to act together: strengthening AI infrastructure, accelerating AI's impact on health, education, food security, and disaster response, and ensuring trust and safety."
However, given recent polls showing that the public has limited confidence in large technology companies, opposes constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, is wary of AI’s impact on daily life, and has concerns about politicians having a "cozy relationship" with Big Tech, the commission may be met with skepticism or even backlash.
In the lead-up to the commission's meeting next week at the ITU's AI for Good Global Summit, the UN plans to hold the inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance, featuring a presentation of the "Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence," published Wednesday.
Established with a UN resolution last August, the panel is the first global scientific body on AI—and, as Guterres said in a statement about its new report, "the panel is intended to help the world separate fact from fakes, and science from slop."
"We are looking to them to provide an authoritative reference point at a moment when reliable, unbiased understanding of AI has never been more critical," the UN chief explained. "I am pleased to say that they have delivered a down payment on that commitment—in record time."
The panel's co-chair, Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, noted that "AI capabilities are outpacing both scientific understanding and governments' ability to adapt. With growing evidence of deceptive AI behavior, science currently cannot guarantee that as capabilities continue to increase, AI will not cause catastrophic harm, either on its own or due to malicious users."
"To act effectively, global policymakers must understand these systems," he asserted. "This panel provides exactly that: a rigorous, shared scientific foundation to guide our collective way forward."
The report discusses AI's recent advances and expected trajectories; societal applications, from agriculture to education to healthcare; economic implications; security and environmental concerns; impacts on democracy, human rights, and information; potential harms to child safety and culture; and governance of the rapidly developing technology.
"The technology is transformative, but if the world keeps moving along this trajectory, humanity will fail to realize the gains it promises. The risks—to societies, to security, and to our species—are too high, and the forces driving AI forward are not the forces that will deliver its benefits," said Maria Ressa, a panel's co-chair and Nobel Peace Prize-winning Filipino-American journalist.
Guterres, whose term ends this year, similarly stressed the need for urgent action on a global scale. He said that the "single lesson" he wanted to highlight from the multifaceted report is that "the more AI advances without shared rules, the less say governments and people will have in the outcome. So my message to governments is simple: Do not wait."
"Next week in Geneva, the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance will begin to turn science into shared action—with every nation at the same table," he said. "I look forward to joining member states there to help carry this work forward. And soon, I will set out proposals to help countries build the capacity to adequately deal with this technology—and share in its rewards."
Guterres' Wednesday comments came after he publicly took aim at artificial intelligence companies last week, proposing the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative during London Climate Action Week, as the second heatwave in as many months scorched the United Kingdom and various other European countries, killing at least hundreds of people.
"I am calling on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of its systems—carbon, water, and land footprints—and to commit to power every data center with renewable energy by 2030," he declared. "No more hidden costs. No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it."
Jul 01, 2026
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Smotrich Condemned for Plan to 'Illegally Seize' Gaza After Calling for Israel to ‘Complete the Conquest’ and Build Settlements
Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "complete the conquest" of Gaza on Monday and send Israeli settlers to colonize the territory.
"We are prepared to establish three settlements in the northern perimeter immediately, the moment we receive the green light from the prime minister and the minister of defense," Smotrich said in a video filmed from the city of Sderot, which sits less than a mile from the wall separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.
Smotrich claimed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) currently "[hold] nearly 70% of the Gaza Strip."
“We must complete the conquest of the remaining 30%,” he said, adding that they need to “defeat Hamas and above all we need to establish a belt of Jewish settlements within the territory of the Strip as a protective border for Sderot and all the communities of the Gaza envelope.”
Smotrich, who has overseen the rapid, violent acceleration of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank—considered illegal under international law—has been quite blatant about his desire to expand settlements into Gaza as well, reversing Israel’s withdrawal of settlers from the territory in 2005.
At a settlements conference last year, he said that “Gaza will be totally destroyed" and that its residents would be "concentrated" in a narrow southern strip while the rest of the territory "will be empty." He celebrated that Gazans would become “totally despairing” and seek “relocation” elsewhere, allowing Jewish Israelis to move in.
As the movement of settlers into the West Bank has ramped up, along with the destruction of Palestinian homes, Smotrich has said that the use of settlements to carve up the West Bank was "killing the idea of the Palestinian state."
Netanyahu has never said explicitly that he wants to resettle Gaza, but he did say last month, during a speech at an illegal West Bank settlement, that he'd ordered the military to seize 70% of Gaza in violation of the boundaries drawn up under last year's ceasefire agreement, which put Israel in temporary control of about 53% of the territory.
The peace plan laid out by US President Donald Trump, backed by a United Nations Security Council resolution, which underpins the ceasefire signed in October, states explicitly that "Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza."
The Resistance Committees in Palestine, a collection of armed groups in Gaza working closely with Hamas, described Smotrich's call to build settlements in the strip a "dangerous criminal escalation" and a "fully-fledged war crime" in a statement on Tuesday.
They described it as "a scheme to settle the conflict and impose a fait accompli in the context of the genocidal war" and a "dangerous development aimed at sabotaging the efforts of mediators and guarantors to solidify the ceasefire agreement and liquidate the Palestinian cause and presence in Gaza."
Assal Rad, a fellow at the Arab Center in Washington DC, emphasized that Smotrich was hardly a fringe figure.
"This isn’t a random person," she said. "He’s a high-ranking Israeli official declaring the intent to illegally seize Gaza."
Jun 30, 2026
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Caving to Trump 'Temper Tantrum,' Two Republicans Flip to Block Iran War Powers Resolution
Two Senate Republicans who supported a previous resolution calling for an end to the US war on Iran changed their votes late Wednesday after President Donald Trump publicly and privately berated GOP lawmakers, calling them "losers" who provided "aid and comfort to the enemy."
In Wednesday's procedural vote, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)—who reportedly got into a shouting match with Trump over the Iran war during a closed-door lunch hours earlier—sided with virtually every other Republican in opposing the war powers resolution, just a day after he supported a separate, symbolic resolution calling for the removal of US forces from the conflict. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also switched, changing his vote to "present" at the urging of the president.
Senate Republicans forced late Wednesday's vote in a clear effort to placate Trump, who fumed at "Republican losers" who backed the symbolic war powers resolution that passed the upper chamber earlier this week. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the lead sponsor of the resolution that Republicans blocked on Wednesday, said the vote was held to "appease [Trump's] temper tantrum."
"After both Republican-majority Houses took the historic step of voting that additional war against Iran is illegal without congressional authorization, President Trump came to the Capitol and tried to browbeat Republican senators for upholding their oaths of office," said Kaine. Wednesday's vote, the senator added, "does not undo the expressed position of Congress that further war against Iran is illegal unless Congress votes for it."
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to resume attacks on Iran if negotiations collapse, celebrated Wednesday's vote in a late-night post on his social media platform, thanking Senate GOP leaders and highlighting that Cassidy and Paul changed their votes.
Cassidy, who lost reelection last month and insisted hours before the vote that he would not "be bullied" by the administration, subsequently thanked the White House for giving him a "thorough briefing" on Iran to "address many of my concerns." Trump reportedly called Cassidy a "lunatic" during Wednesday's private lunch.
"This president is telling the American people there’s no money for healthcare, housing, or childcare—but there should be endless taxpayer dollars to fund wars they don’t support."
Wednesday's vote came amid tenuous negotiations between the US and Iran on a diplomatic resolution to end the illegal war that Trump launched in late February, killing thousands of Iranians, throwing the global economy into chaos, and driving up prices at home.
On Wednesday, prior to the Senate war powers vote, the White House asked Congress to approve an $87.6 billion supplemental funding package that includes nearly $70 billion for military programs to address "operational costs incurred" during the war on Iran.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement that "the tens of billions in military spending requested by the Trump administration could be used to protect Americans’ healthcare, feed hungry children, and help working families afford everyday life."
"Instead, Trump wants taxpayers to continue footing the bill for his reckless war in Iran, which has sent the cost of gas and everyday goods skyrocketing, put our brave men and women in uniform at risk, and left the region no safer than before," Boyle added.
Senate Democrats' top appropriator, Patty Murray of Washington, said she would not "rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice."
“This president is telling the American people there’s no money for healthcare, housing, or childcare—but there should be endless taxpayer dollars to fund wars they don’t support," said Murray.
Jun 25, 2026
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US-UK Medicine Deal Will Take 'Wrecking Ball' to NHS, Causing 229,000 Excess Deaths: Study
"We cannot afford to sit by while our NHS is picked apart by a foreign regime," said one member of Parliament.
Jul 02, 2026
One member of British Parliament called on the Labour government to defend the country's revered National Health Service "with everything we have and firmly stand up to the bully in the White House" after a study published Wednesday showed the UK-US pharmaceutical trade deal brokered last year is projected to cause 229,000 excess deaths as funding is stripped away from the NHS.
“It is a complete insult to patients who are suffering and dying on hospital trolleys and waiting months for treatment," said Helen Morgan of the Liberal Democrats Party regarding the new analysis. "We cannot afford to sit by while our NHS is picked apart by a foreign regime."
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of York, the University of Liverpool, and Christchurch Hospital in New Zealand and published in the British Medical Journal, found that £44.7 billion ($59.5 billion) will have to be diverted from health services by 2036 in order to pay for new medications under the deal.
The agreement was reached last December, with recently resigned Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government agreeing to pay 25% more for new US medications over the next decade. The NHS will double the percentage of gross domestic product that it allocates for pharmaceuticals, from 0.3% to 0.6%, with the spending increasing from 10% to 12% of the universal healthcare system's budget.
In exchange, the Trump administration agreed not to impose tariffs of up to 100% that he had threatened for UK medicines being imported to the US.
Science Minister Patrick Vallance insisted in April that the deal would give NHS patients access to "life-changing new medicines that they previously would have been denied" while boosting the UK's "life sciences sector" by avoiding Trump's tariffs.
"Scandalously, this backroom deal was not subject to any scrutiny in Parliament before being rushed through—and the government refuses to say what impact it will have on the NHS."
But Sir Ciarán Devane, chief executive of the NHS Alliance, told The Guardian that the study raised "serious questions" about whether Britons will truly benefit from the agreement.
"If billions of pounds are diverted away from frontline care to meet higher medicines costs, the consequences for prevention, community services, and the treatment of long-term conditions could be profound," said Devane. "The government must urgently publish the full impact assessment and ensure there is appropriate scrutiny of the deal if it could have such far-reaching implications for population health.”
The projected avoidable death toll in the study far exceeds that which the UK saw during the coronavirus pandemic, when 137,000 excess deaths were recorded between March 2020-June 2022.
"If the indirect effect on adult social care is also included, the increase in excess deaths is even greater (291,000),” reads the study.
The greatest number of excess deaths is projected to occur in patients suffering from cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal issues as well as cancer.
Patients with “neurological, endocrine, musculoskeletal, and mental health problems" will also face "broader effects on quality of life," the research states.
The government has assured the public that "frontline services" will be protected, notes the report, but "the NHS will need to fund this deal from allocations made six months before the deal was agreed. The evidence suggests that if additional public expenditure was available, it could be more effectively deployed within the NHS itself."
The research projected that the greatest number of deaths would occur in cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal and cancer patients.
It added that there will also be broader harm caused to quality of life for patients in those sectors as well as “neurological, endocrine, musculoskeletal, and mental health problems”.
Tim Bierley, a campaigner with the UK-based group Global Justice Now, said that the report "adds to the overwhelming evidence that the Trump medicines deal risks taking a wrecking ball to our health and our economy."
"Billions that could be spent on recruiting more NHS staff, cutting [general practitioner] waiting times, or improving our hospital care are set to be siphoned off by corporate giants in the pharma industry," said Bierley, whose group has joined the campaign Just Treatment in filing a legal challenge against the deal. "Scandalously, this backroom deal was not subject to any scrutiny in Parliament before being rushed through—and the government refuses to say what impact it will have on the NHS."
"The next prime minister," said Bierley, "must change direction, stand up for our NHS, and unpick the mess left by their predecessors.”
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'This Is the PFAS Presidency': Trump EPA Approves Another Forever Chemical Pesticide
"The Trump administration's EPA is once again showing its disdain for Americans' health and the natural world."
Jul 01, 2026
Environmental and public health advocates on Wednesday ripped the US Environmental Protection Agency's fifth approval of a "forever chemical" pesticide during the current term of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to "Make America Healthy Again."
Despite that pledge, Trump's second administration—much like his first—has served the pesticide industry in various ways, including by putting out a MAHA report that echoes industry talking points, installing a former industry lobbyist in a key EPA post, backing Bayer-owned Monsanto over cancer patients at the US Supreme Court, and issuing an executive order that mandates the production of glyphosate.
Under Trump, the EPA has also approved or reapproved various controversial pesticides, from atrazine and dicamba to trifludimoxazin, which was approved late Tuesday. Like diflufenican and epyrifenacil, which were authorized by the EPA earlier Tuesday, as well as cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, which got a green light from the agency last November, trifludimoxazin is what some scientists and campaigners call a forever chemical pesticide.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—which have been used in not only pesticides but also fabrics, firefighting foam, nonstick cookware, and other household products—are widely known as forever chemicals because they don't break down naturally. They're also linked to a range of health issues, including various cancers.
"This is the PFAS presidency brought to you by Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin," Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared Wednesday.
As with his Tuesday critique of the Trump EPA approving diflufenican and epyrifenacil, Donley pointed to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of Trump-backed Bayer, rather than the thousands of Americans who argue that Monsanto's glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup caused their cancer.
"Waiting to open the floodgates on new pesticide approvals until after the Supreme Court granted immunity to pesticide companies takes a special kind of callousness," he said.
Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety (CFS), similarly said Wednesday that "with yesterday's pesticide approvals, the Trump administration's EPA is once again showing its disdain for Americans' health and the natural world."
"The EPA's pesticide division is seemingly no longer able to recognize evidence that a pesticide causes cancer, even when it's the pesticide company's own studies that show it," he continued. "And as per usual, EPA dismisses out of hand incriminating independent studies by scientists not affiliated with the pesticide industry."
In addition to the PFAS pesticides, the EPA is under fire this week for approving new uses for chlormequat, a non-PFAS pesticide tied to reproductive issues, and the fungicide fluoxapiprolin.
CFS co-executive director Sylvia Wu pointed out that the agency dismissed studies showing that fluoxapiprolin and epyrifenacil both produce tumors in laboratory rodents and classified both as "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans."
"The EPA's illegitimate rejection of the evidence that these two pesticides cause cancer is very similar to the tricks it pulled in denying glyphosate could cause cancer," Wu said. "These blatant violations of the agency's own cancer guidelines are unacceptable."
As for chlormequat, Freese said that "EPA should never have approved this endocrine-disrupting pesticide, particularly since its persistence and potential for widespread use on wheat and other widely consumed grains will mean universal exposure."
Already, "chlormequat is found in the urine of 90% of Americans, thought to come mostly from residues on imported foods where the pesticide has been used," the Center for Biological Diversity noted Wednesday. Like Freese, the group warned that "approval of its use on US wheat and oats ensures that exposure to the US population will increase dramatically."
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Court Lands Latest Blow to Trump's 'Anti-Voting Agenda' by Blocking USPS Attack on Mailed Ballots
“USPS’ plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy," said one case litigant.
Jul 01, 2026
In a ruling hailed by democracy defenders, a federal court on Wednesday halted the US Postal Service's implementation of President Donald Trump's March executive order targeting mail-in ballots as part of his administration's broader attack on voting rights.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted a request by the NAACP to enforce a 2021 settlement agreement requiring the USPS to protect mail-in voting and prioritize delivery of mail related to elections through 2028.
The request followed the Postal Service's publication last month of a proposed rule that would block the delivery of mail-in ballots to voters in states where election officials refused to provide certain information to USPS or use a specific envelope design. That proposal came after Trump's March executive order directing federal agencies to create a nationwide list of eligible voters using federal data.
The directive also requires the Postal Service to verify that mail-in ballots are sent and returned only by eligible voters, preserve election-related records for a longer period, and exercise heightened oversight of mailed ballots.
The Public Citizen Litigation Group and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a motion on behalf of the NAACP asserting that the proposed rule "manifests USPS’ intent not to deliver certain mail-in ballots, establishing a process that directly violates its obligations under the agreement."
“The court today correctly recognized that USPS’ plan to create roadblocks to mail-in voting was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail,” Public Citizen Litigation Group director Allison Zieve said in a statement following Sullivan's ruling. “USPS’ plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy.”
🚨BREAKING: In the latest blow to President Donald Trump’s anti-voting agenda, a federal court on Wednesday granted the NAACP’s request to halt the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) implementation of his executive order against mail voting. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) July 1, 2026 at 1:41 PM
LDF associate director-counsel Sam Spital said, “Today’s decision recognizes that USPS cannot disregard its legal obligation to timely deliver mail-in ballots to all voters."
"We are glad that the court blocked a blatant attempt to renege on this commitment through a proposed rule that ran the risk of undermining the fairness of our national elections, creating particular dangers for Black voters," Spital continued. "LDF will continue to defend our democracy and combat unlawful restrictions of the right to vote.”
Anthony P. Ashton, senior associate general counsel at the NAACP, called the decision "a critical step in protecting the rights of voters who rely on the timely delivery of mail-in ballots to participate in our democracy."
Ashton continued:
The proposed USPS changes would have created unnecessary and unlawful barriers, in direct violation of the USPS’ mandate to prioritize election mail. Those barriers could have disproportionately harmed Black voters, who are more likely to rely on mail voting due to long-standing inequities in access. Put simply, the use of mail-in voting helps reduce voter intimidation at the polls and election day dirty tricks. This decision makes clear that access to the ballot cannot be tied to arbitrary requirements. The NAACP will continue to hold this government accountable when it attempts to undermine fair and equal access to the electoral process.
Wednesday's order—from a judge who's been appointed to various positions by Republican and Democratic presidents throughout his career—is the latest in a string of federal court rulings against Trump's attacks on voting rights, crowned by Monday's Watson v. Republican National Committee US Supreme Court decision, in which the justices affirmed that states may count ballots received after Election Day if they were postmarked in time.
Last week, a federal judge in Massachusetts sided with Democratic state attorneys who challenged Trump's March 2025 executive order that requires Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, while another judge in the same district blocked parts of the president's March 2026 order, which included the USPS directive.
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