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Whew. It's been a time: "Open the Fuckin' Strait," "A whole civilization will die," puerile threats, boundless botches and cover-ups, deranged lurches into ballrooms, auto-pens, Davy Crockett, and a media sanewashing it all. And when their slapstick "ceasefire" and "peace talks" imploded, our Supreme Leader was at a UFC cage match watching men batter each other bloody for fun and profit. Then he depicted himself as Jesus, with a hotel on the moon. Breaking: "The president has lost his mind."
It's a historic given that the final act of any narcissist is inevitably a descent into psychosis. Thus are we now witnessing - and struggling to survive - the mayhem of "history's dumbest madman," a toddler with a gun, a Dunning-Kruger president with a brain of moldering oatmeal as supremely confident as he is utterly ignorant, leading to dazzling insights like, "I'll know the war is over when I feel it in my bones." A criminal braggart and loathsome human being, he is above all extraordinarily stupid, giving rise to the first time in history you can post, "He's an idiot," and 90% of the world knows who you're talking about. It may also be the first time aggrieved, enraged citizens regularly say of their purported leader, "Die as soon as possible, you child-raping worthless fuck."
Today, we find ourselves mired in "the worst-run war in US history," a witless war conducted mostly by thumb by "a depraved idiot" with no plan, no map, no clue, inexorably morphed into the "Worst. Ceasefire. Ever." In his staggering stupidity, Trump has done more damage to American status, power and respect in weeks than any adversary did in decades, experts say, empowering and enriching Russia, China and Iran while endlessly, mindlessly declaring, Baghdad-Bob-like, "victory" over "obliterated" enemy forces. Abetted by a cabal of inept sycophants whose "collective incompetence is unprecedented," a demented old crook who relishes carnage has rendered America a rogue state lacking all credibility, a beleaguered world's preeminent villain and laughingstock.
In the lead-up to his illegal war, the chaos begun on Day One had already wildly escalated, blunders coming fast and lethal. He gutted measures to reduce civilian casualties, decommissioned minesweepers, fired judge advocate generals who keep military action within international law, did no planning for the economic fallout, stupefyingly ignored warnings about Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz - universally deemed by anyone who's glanced at a map or history book the key vulnerability in Middle East geopolitics. The result: A Wild West lack of accountability that on the first day saw a US strike slaughter some 175 Iranian schoolgirls, an atrocity first met with lies and denials, then silence and as yet no apology from any American representative.
We've since seen a flood of senseless, trash-talking claims, threats and whiplash deadlines that sound either like a rabid 10-year-old schoolyard bully, a pissed-off late-night text to a mob sweetheart who hasn't called back, or a ransom note in crayon: "If they don't make a deal, I am blowing up everything," "Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” "WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!", "If it goes well we'll settle, otherwise we'll keep bombing our little hearts out," "TAKE THE OIL & MAKE A FORTUNE," "48 hours before all Hell will reign (sic) down," "We will bomb Iran back into the Stone ages (sic)." They're so dumb Iran trolls him online: When he claimed (fictional) “good and productive talks," they echoed him with a smiley face and, "To the president of peace."
They, and the world, were less amused when he went full genocidal and proclaimed, "Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one. Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards," with a jeering, "Praise be to Allah," and then the more bonkers, "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." Still-spineless legacy media translated that into, "Mr. Trump issued a new ultimatum." For Easter, Jonathan Larsen noted the day would be "commemorated with the traditional threatening of the war crimes (with the) ritual repetition of deadlines and horrific consequences...(The) incantation was followed (by) the miracle of the levitating oil prices. They were risen." The Strait, Iran officials asserted, "will not be opened through the ridiculous spectacle (of) the president of the United States." His name, they wrote, "will be etched in history as a supreme war criminal.”
Another deadline shuffled, the madness by "a dangerous delinquent idiot" went on. At a surreal Easter Egg Roll, he ranted about Iran's fighters beside a bewildered Easter Bunny, babbled to the assembled, equally baffled kids about Biden's auto-pen, insisted bombing was good for Iranian children, and silently stared down a reporter who asked about war crimes, stonily turning away with, "What else?" He gave a droopy, gibberish speech about America's "overwhelming victories on the battlefield,” though there haven't been any battles and "the whelmingest victory" was against a girls' school. It was rote stale lies, noted Colbert: "All the stuff you’ve heard before, delivered by a narcotized turtle” who'd disastrously "started a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle" and then walked away.
Online, amidst a war, he's ceaselessly spewed batshit claptrap: He raged at Somali Americans, wondered if Jasmine Crockett is related to Davy Crockett, trashed Bill Maher and "dried-up old prune" Springsteen (LOL), obsessed over his ballroom and Hitler-esque arch. He said "we can’t take care of daycare" or Medicaid/ Medicare "little scams" because we need more war; speaking of, he posted a bizarre, pre-Bonespurs photo of himself in military garb. He danced, partied as tankers burned, danced again: "Young man, there's no need to feel down!" Letting his homicidal freak flag fly, he fundraised off images of dead soldiers - him in his fucking baseball cap - and lied their families urged the war on. One non-fan: "He has the empathy of a serial killer."
He's also brazenly saber-rattled - the US military can do "whatever it wants in the world" - and blasphemed - God supports the war because He/She "wants to see people taken care of." Umm. Add the "heretical Christianist gibberish" of bombastic ghoul Drunk Pete - who's giddily celebrated “death and destruction from the sky," urged war-crimey "no quarter" against enemies, and prayed for "overwhelming violence against those who deserve no mercy" - and even devoutly apolitical church leaders have protested, "There are no new crusades. If God is present in this war, He is among those who are dying." Noted Pope Leo, "Jesus, King of Peace, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.’"
Following in a long, grim American tradition, the regime's hands may prove more bloody than we know. Despite an "investigation" into the massacre of Iranian schoolgirls, there's been no accountability and many deem it unlikely there will ever be. Meanwhile, multiple reports suggest a series of cover-ups by officials seeking to hide the deadly cost of a catastrophic war nobody wants. A new report accuses military leaders of a "casualty cover-up," charging they're issuing “low-ball and outdated figures" of U.S. casualties of up to 750 Americans killed or wounded. Unsurprisingly, the chest-thumping, out-of-his-depth, lying- his-way-out-of-sexual-assault-charges Drunktank Pete is often at the center of reported deceptions, with angry soldiers themselves calling them out.
Survivors have disputed his account of a deadly March 1 Iranian drone attack in Kuwait that killed six U.S. soldiers and wounded dozens, with almost 40 hospitalized. Soldiers describe a grisly scene with many head wounds, perforated eardrums and shrapnel hits to abdomens and limbs; The Great Empathizer infamously shrugged off the carnage with, "That's the way it is." Hegseth claimed the drone was a "squirter," an anomaly that "squeaked through" a well-fortified operations center. But survivors call bullshit, saying they were left "unprepared to provide any defense." "Calling it a squirter is a falsehood," said one, citing "a bunch of little tin buildings” unprotected from the sky, in "a deeply unsafe area" not just within range of Iran's missiles but a known potential target. On the degree of fortification, he said, "I would put it in the 'none' category."
A new WaPo story also disputes Hegseth claims about Iran's losses that fail to line up with intel and reality. Despite his persistent boasts that Tehran's military might has been "decimated" by U.S. forces' "complete control of Iranian skies" in now-"uncontested airspace,“ experts say Iran still has over half its missile launchers and thousands of medium- and short-range ballistic weapons that can be repaired or pulled from underground facilities. They also say his focus on the number of Iran's missile launches is "a dumb metric" that ignores what matters: Not their volume, but their precision, or "hit rates," which are increasing as their strategy evolves. In another nod to his cluelessness, they note the downing of an F-15 and subsequent rescue of its airman - itself a suspected cover-up of a failed mission - is "what happens when you have air superiority but not air supremacy."
Finally, many have suggested a cover-up of possible sabotage on the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the Navy’s $13 billion crown jewel, which has morphed into a sort of McHale's Navy "Voyage of the Damned" for a war-weary crew of about 4,500 sailors stuck in a record-breaking 11th month of deployment. "It’s on fire. It’s heading to Greece. And the toilets don’t work," runs one succinct summary of its series of mishaps, from the breakdown of over 600 toilets - also suspected as sabotage - to a laundry-room fire that raged for 30 hours, caused far greater damage than initially reported, and left some 600 sailors sleeping on floors and tables before the ship limped to Greece for repairs. The Navy is now investigating whether the fire was deliberately set,
Between lies, blunders, mutinies against mindless wars and an addled Commander Bonespurs who doesn't know how batteries work, some WH officials have reportedly "raised concerns" - thanks legacy media - if lackeys are "explaining the evolving complexity of the conflict" to him. Seriously? The guy claims he invented the word "groceries," thinks migrants come from insane asylums, and gets his daily info from a two-minute video of "stuff blowing up" (which has never ended a war, except in Hiroshima) so what are the odds? This weekend, he again displayed his strategic acumen by railing against a (female) reporter who asked about the Strait. "We win, no matter what," he snapped. "We've defeated their military, it's all at the bottom of the sea (with sharks!), their leaders are dead. With all that, lets see what happens. But from my standpoint, I don't care."
Neither, apparently, do the whip-smart, deeply knowledgeable "negotiators" - a corrupt slumlord, clueless golf bro and creep who fucks couches - who just went to Pakistan for "peace talks." Less than shockingly, they gave up in under 24 hours and fled home empty-handed. According to Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the Ugly Americans "derailed" the talks with "maximalist demands and shifting goalposts" just as the two sides were "inches away" from an agreement. "Zero lessons learned," Araghchi wrote. "Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.” Profoundly weirdly - and aptly for this timeline - at the same moment J.D. was announcing their failure, Trump, slathered in clown makeup, was entering Miami's Kaseya Center to watch two men beat up each other, or pretend to, in a UFC cage match.
With Kid Rock blaring and accompanied by assorted bottom-feeders - UFC's Dana White, rapper Vanilla Ice, a few of his evil spawn and a hammered-looking, dead-eyed Marco Rubio who bafflingly skipped seeking peace, which is kinda his job, for this - Trump strutted into his last MAGA chud safe space, a symptom of the decline of Western civilization and a tacky haven for people who get off on watching other people get hurt. Last year, Trump was loudly cheered here; this year, he was cheered and booed, not a good sign for his shot at the UFC Peace Prize. Amidst our many crises, people mulled why Rubio was there. One sage: "He makes Trump look tall." Others: "This ain’t a cabinet. It’s a junk drawer," "This is not serious leadership. It’s amateur hour,” and "What a circus."
Trump, a fat, clumsy, longtime manosphere wannabe, watched the fighting intensely from ringside, occasionally dodging blood and spit, oblivious to the madness of attending a fucking cage match as the world burns. Ever-dazzled by celebrity, he went gaga for Brazil’s Paulo Costa when the fighter came over to shake his teeny, rotting hand. “You’re a beautiful guy," Trump crooned. "You could be a model, you look so good.” Filmmaker Jeremy Newberger: “This montage of dueling events" - UFC vs. war and peace - "would be the denouement of The Godfather Part VII: Corleone Nights, a straight to video release by a second cousin of Francis Ford Coppola’s tax attorney." We are adrift in a dumpster-fire idiocracy, wading through Trump's opus, I Really Don't Care, Do U?
The next day, he announced a blockade to block the blockade that’s blocking the Strait of Hormuz that wasn’t blocked before he caused it to be. "Any Iranian who fires at us, will be BLOWN TO HELL!" he bellowed. "We are fully 'LOCKED AND LOADED.'" He went on Fox, babbling about the Gulf of Trump and stunning into wide-eyed silence Maria Bartiromo when she asked if he thought gas prices would be lower by the midterms. "I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be," he yammered. "It could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher." Online, he (again) trashed Pope Leo, who's "weak on crime," for being against war. Rep. Ted Lieu, who earlier reminded the military not to obey illegal orders, added, "If you receive an illegal order to attack the Vatican, you will also disobey that order."
In a social media frenzy, he rage-posted 12 times through Sunday night. He posted an AI image of a Trump Hotel on the moon. Then he posted an image of himself cosplaying as Jesus healing a sick man, who if things weren't weird enough many thought looked like Epstein. Cue flags, eagles, jets, angels, widespread outrage even from MAGA world - most charged "blasphemy," not insanity - who maybe should've seen this coming? Taken aback by the uproar, he sputtered it "had to do with red cross as a red cross worker," but took it down. Still, America's eyes hurt. The consensus: "This man is not well." And, said John Brennan, "The 25th Amendment was written with Donald Trump in mind.” Aaron Rupar sent out the image as a plea. "I'm not sure it has broken through to the general public that the president is a megalomaniac crazy person," he wrote. "Hopefully posts like this help." Or not.


One of the worst Western US snow droughts of the century—exacerbated by a historically warm winter and a record-shattering March heatwave—has experts increasingly worried about wildfire and water supply risks heading into the spring and summer months.
On Wednesday, the California Department of Water Resources reported "no measurable snow" recorded at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada range. Because there was some visible snow already on the ground, DWR is calling this the second-lowest April measurement on record.
The agency said this is "a stark indicator of how record‑hot March temperatures and high‑elevation rain have erased the Sierra Nevada snowpack months ahead of schedule."
"The combination of warm storms and unusually hot temperatures rapidly melted what remained of this year’s already sparse snowpack," DWR added. "Statewide, the snowpack is now just 18% of average for this date, according to the automated snow sensor network."
DWR Director Karla Nemeth said that “it feels like we skipped spring this year and dropped straight into a summer heatwave."
“What should be gradual snowmelt happened suddenly weeks ago," Nemeth added. "We’re seeing fewer, warmer storms and shorter wet seasons. Future water supplies will depend upon our ability to capture water when it’s available and manage it more efficiently.”

Jeff Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, told the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday: "It didn’t snow where we needed it to snow, and where it did snow, it didn’t stick. This is going to be an ugly summer."
Oregon's iconic Crater Lake is experiencing its lowest snow water equivalent levels on record for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.
In Colorado, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data show the statewide snowpack is at just 26% of median levels as of Thursday.
“This year is on a whole other level,” Colorado State University climatologist Russ Schumacher told The Guardian. "Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."
Last week, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners declared Stage 1 drought restrictions, a move that seeks to reduce water use by 20%.
“The snowpack within Denver Water’s collection system has deteriorated significantly and continues to decline,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply. “Snowpack levels in both basins are now the lowest observed in the past 40 years, with accelerated melting underway. The conditions we are experiencing are unprecedented, and we need customers to save water to protect the supply we have right now.”
April measurements of alpine snowpacks—which are sometimes described as water savings accounts—typically indicate peak levels of water that, with spring warming, melt into reservoirs, rivers, and other bodies that help hydrate the West during the parched summer and fall months.
“March is often a big month for snowstorms,” Schumacher said. “Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth.”
“This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past,” he added.
As University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist Daniel Swain explained last week:
Meteorologically speaking, March 2026 will go down in the record books as the warmest March on record for at least a third, and possibly half or more, of the continental United States. But even more remarkable is the ~10 day window of peak heat during this truly exceptional March heatwave—when many, if not most, locations across the western two thirds of the United States in a broad swath stretching from the Pacific Coast in California eastward past the Mississippi River broke their all-time March monthly heat records. The margin by which March heat records were shattered was so wide that more than a handful of locations also broke their all-time April heat records, and in a few locations even tied or broke their May heat records!
“Beyond the conspicuous ‘weirdness’ of it all, the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west," Swain warned. "The toll wrought on our 'water tower in the sky' is nothing short of shocking."
I agree. This event has been meteorologically astonishing, and its impacts will be felt long after it ends in terms of record low snowpack, sharply increased wildfire risk, and extreme low watershed runoff/streamflow into summer and beyond.
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— Daniel Swain (@weatherwest.bsky.social) March 25, 2026 at 2:25 PM
The National Interagency Fire Center is among those projecting above-normal fire risk throughout the American West in the coming months.
“Unless there’s a major change in the weather patterns and we somehow pull out some sort of miracle springtime precipitation, we’re looking at an extended fire season,” Joel Lisonbee, senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Guardian.
In addition to the risk of drought and wildfire, low water levels threaten wildlife, including California's flagging salmon runs—which are also imperiled by Trump administration actions including habitat disruption caused by water flow manipulation.
“No sooner do we start to gain a little ground back in rebuilding our salmon runs, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is destroying them again,” Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, told The Sacramento Bee last week. "These fish are in big trouble if the bureau doesn’t relent very soon.”
Scientists have long warned that planetary heating driven by human burning of fossil fuels will result in longer and more frequent snow droughts. One 2020 study showed how the Western United States is fast becoming a "global snow drought hot spot," with the length of such dry spells increasing by 28% between 1980 and 2018.
“Climate change is going to result in a lot of these extreme events worsening,” Clark University climatologist Abby Frazier told The Guardian on Thursday. "It is heartbreaking to see it all playing out as we have predicted for so long. The changes we have teed up for ourselves are going to be catastrophic.”
A group of Hollywood actors, directors, and producers on Monday published an open letter demanding the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery be blocked.
In their letter, the Hollywood heavyweights outlined the harms that would come from allowing Paramount—which is owned by David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison—to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
"This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries—and the audiences we serve—can least afford it," the letter states. "The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world. Alarmingly, this merger would reduce the number of major US film studios to just four."
The letter goes on to describe how consolidation in the entertainment industry has already "accelerated the disappearance of the mid-budget film, the erosion of independent distribution, the collapse of the international sales market, the elimination of meaningful profit participation, and the weakening of screen credit integrity."
Looking at the bigger picture, the letter notes that "competition is essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy," then goes on to praise California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state AGs for filing legal actions aimed at blocking the merger amid fears that the Trump administration could rubber-stamp it.
"We are grateful for their leadership," the letter concludes, "and stand ready to support all efforts to preserve competition, protect jobs, and ensure a vibrant future for our industry, for American culture, and for our single most significant export."
Actor Mark Ruffalo, a signatory of the letter, published an article on his Substack page outlining his own reasons for opposing the merger, which he described as "the epitome of crony capitalism and the oligarchs consolidating more corporations and media power to shape the outcome of their business interests."
Ruffalo also said he's spoken with others in Hollywood who were reluctant to sign the letter over concerns about retaliation from Trump or Ellison should the attempt to block the merger fail.
"The people pushing monopolies such as this one use fear to keep the workers in line," Ruffalo said. "I have heard it time and time again from my fellows, they are afraid of retribution. Some didn’t want to sign because they are afraid. How sad is that? In America the artists are afraid to speak out against power."
Actress Jane Fonda, founder of the modern Committee for the First Amendment, said that the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger "would be one of the most destructive threats to free speech and creative expression in our history," because it would put "unprecedented power in the hands of a single corporation that already appears to have proven itself willing to sacrifice integrity for political favor."
The letter earned praise from democracy and antitrust advocates, who argued that blocking the merger was necessary to stopping President Donald Trump's ambitions for a right-wing takeover of US media.
“The future of free media and a strong entertainment industry in America is at stake here,” said Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund. “This proposed merger would not only harm competition and creativity, it would erode the very bedrock of our democracy."
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, noted that "consolidation in Hollywood has been a disaster, and has led to the weak state of the industry," and said the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger needed to be blocked to prevent further damage.
"Not only does this kind of concentration hollow out creative markets," said Stoller, "it concentrates control over culture and information in the hands of a few unaccountable executives, and in this case totalitarian Gulf countries, undermining a free and pluralistic media ecosystem that democracy depends on."
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday called for a total ban on dark money a day after the Democratic National Committee voted down a resolution that would have condemned the leading US pro-Israel lobby, which has spent nine figures on US elections over the past five years.
The DNC Resolutions Committee rejected the resolution, which condemned “the growing influence” of dark money and corporate-backed outside spending on Democratic races, specifically calling out the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. United Democracy Project, AIPAC's dark money arm, unleashed a $100 million blitz targeting progressives during the 2024 election cycle.
When combined with other pro-Israel lobby groups, like GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson's Preserve America PAC, that figure soars to over $200 million, according to the public interest group AIPAC Tracker.
Instead, the DNC panel opted for a broader resolution decrying the influence of dark money—defined as undisclosed independent campaign contributions—in the 2026 Democratic primaries.
"The DNC just passed a resolution condemning dark money," Sanders (Vt.) said Friday on X. "That’s a start, but not enough."
"Billionaire-funded super PACs—AIPAC, AI, crypto, and others—are spending hundreds of millions to defeat any candidate who crosses them," the senator added. "They should be banned from Democratic primaries. Period."
Sanders campaigned twice for president, centering his opposition to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which effectively ushered in the modern era of secret unlimited political spending.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, dark money spending in federal elections has skyrocketed from negligible amounts before 2010 to over $1.9 billion in the 2024 cycle alone, with over $4 billion in total undisclosed outside financing following the high court's contentious ruling.
Polling has repeatedly affirmed that support for Israel—which stands accused in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in Gaza and has already been found by the ICJ to be illegally occupying Palestine under apartheid rule—is detrimental to Democrats.
The DNC's own suppressed postmortem of the 2024 presidential election also showed that former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris' unconditional support for Israel cost Harris votes.
As AIPAC has grown more toxic to US voters amid a litany of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—a growing number of Democrats, including some who once welcomed the group's support, are turning their backs on the lobby.
“AIPAC really is not an organization that I think today I would want any part of," Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said last month after affiliated groups poured $22 million into House races in his state.
While AIPAC cash was instrumental in unseating congressional progressives including former Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.), its largesse failed to oust others, including Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
Sanders wasn't the only one to criticize the DNC's rejection of the anti-AIPAC resolution.
“The American people are clear: They want our government to invest in life and stop funding the bombs that are destroying lives in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran," Jewish Voice for Peace political director Beth Miller said Friday.
"The DNC’s failure to pass this simple resolution condemning the outsized spending of an extremist and Republican-funded group like AIPAC in Democratic primaries shows how wildly out of touch the party is with its base," Miller added.
A suspect was arrested in San Francisco Friday after being accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of Sam Altman, the CEO of the artificial intelligence firm OpenAI.
The 20-year-old man was found at the OpenAI headquarters about three miles away from Altman's home, where he was threatening to burn down the building, San Francisco police said.
The device the suspect threw onto Altman's property in the Russian Hill neighborhood caused a fire on the exterior gate. It was unclear whether Altman and his family were at home.
The suspect was in custody Friday, with charges pending.
Altman's company and other companies have been under fire as AI has expanded rapidly at President Donald Trump's urging, with the president issuing an executive order attacking states' ability to regulate the industry.
Experts have warned the expansion of generative AI threatens jobs and democracy, with political campaigns already using the technology to create fraudulent media in advertisements.
Massive, energy-sucking AI data centers have also been blamed for higher household electricity bills and water consumption.
Protesters have rallied against Altman's company for agreeing to provide its technology to the Department of Defense.
In November, The New York Times reported, a person who had once been associated with the anti-AI group Stop AI "expressed interest in causing physical harm to OpenAI employees," causing the company to lock down its headquarters.
On Friday, Stop AI condemned the attack on Altman's house and emphasized that the group "seeks to protect human life."
"We do not condone any violence whatsoever," said the group. "We pray everyone involved in this situation puts aside violence and finds peace, and we continue to hope the AI industry stops the development of frontier AI systems in the interest of public safety and the preservation of humanity. To the best of our knowledge, this incident did not involve anyone who has ever been associated with our group. And this action is wholly inconsistent with our values."
The United States military has killed five more people suspected of drug smuggling in the latest boat bombing operation that many international law experts consider to be acts of murder.
In a Sunday social media post, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced it had "conducted two lethal kinetic strikes on two vessels" that it had deemed to be run by "designated terrorist organizations." As with the dozens of other boat bombings the Trump administration has conducted since last September, the military did not provide evidence that the vessels were involved in drug trafficking.
"Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations," SOUTHCOM said. "Two male narco-terrorists were killed, and one narco-terrorist survived the first strike. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during the second strike."
SOUTHCOM said that it had alerted the US Coast Guard to conduct a search and rescue operation of the lone survivor of the two strikes, although it provided no further details of his well-being.
According to NPR, the US has now killed at least 168 people with its strikes on suspected drug boats, which began in September and have since continued despite being denounced by human rights organizations such as Human Rights and Amnesty International.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, took note of the latest boat strike by remarking, "The lawless killing spree at sea continues."
A coalition of rights organizations led by the ACLU last year sued the Trump administration to demand it release documents that provide legal justification for its boat-bombing campaign.
The groups said that the Trump administration’s rationales for the strikes deserve special scrutiny because their justification hinges on claims that the US is in an “armed conflict” with international drug cartels akin to past conflicts between the US government and terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda.
The groups argued there is simply no way that drug cartels can be classified under the same umbrella as terrorist organizations, given that the law regarding war with nonstate actors says that any organizations considered to be in armed conflict with the US must be an “organized armed group” that is structured like a conventional military and engaged in “protracted armed violence” with the US government.
Before President Donald Trump's Pentagon began conducting the lethal boat strikes last year, drug trafficking in international waters was treated as a criminal offense, with law enforcement agencies and the US Coast Guard intercepting boats suspected of carrying drugs and arresting suspects.
Trump's bombings of boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been called "extrajudicial killings" by advocacy groups including Amnesty International.
The companies avoided more than $26.7 billion in income taxes last year, enough to give free school lunches to every child in America.
Dozens of America's most profitable corporations avoided paying any federal income taxes in 2025, according to an analysis out on Tuesday from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The 88 companies—which include Tesla, Southwest Airlines, Live Nation, Palantir, Citigroup, and many others listed in the S&P 500—brought in a collective $105 billion in pretax income last year.
ITEP found that 2025 saw a spike in corporate tax avoidance, enabled in part by new loopholes created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump and by his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced the corporate tax rate to 21% from its previous 35%.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is expected to hand the wealthiest 1% of Americans $117 billion in tax cuts this year, while those in the bottom 95% are set to pay more in taxes while facing across-the-board cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
It also allowed multimillion- and billion-dollar corporations to find new ways to avoid paying taxes. More than half of the tax-avoiders listed in the report used a provision in the new tax law allowing companies to immediately write off capital investments, reducing their collective taxes by $11.4 billion.
Pharmaceutical and tech companies, meanwhile, were able to take advantage of tax write-offs for research and development, exempting them from approximately another $4.4 billion.
In total, the corporate tax avoidance documented in 2025 by the researchers helped to rob the public coffers of yet another $26.7 billion, enough to give every public school student a free lunch for a year, according to a University of Missouri analysis of the National School Lunch Program.
The researchers said that the full scale of corporate tax avoidance remains unclear, since corporate tax returns are not publicly available. Some companies were also excluded because they are not part of the S&P 500 or have not yet reported their 2025 taxes.
“These findings are not isolated cases—they reflect systemic deficiencies in the corporate tax code,” said Amy Hanauer, the executive director for ITEP. “Without meaningful reform, profitable corporations will continue to pay less than their fair share.”
"AI is the most far-reaching and pivotal technological revolution in the history of humanity," notes the Sanders Institute. "The choices we make now will determine whether those changes make the world better or worse."
The Sanders Institute is hosting Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congressman Ro Khanna, and author and filmmaker Naomi Klein on Tuesday afternoon for a livestreamed discussion designed to explore "the progressive vision for artificial intelligence and robotics, and where we go from here."
Khanna (D-Calif.) and Klein are both fellows at the institute, cofounded by Sanders' (I-Vt.) wife and son, Jane O'Meara Sanders and David Driscoll. The Sanders Institute over recent years has convened an array of conferences and events focused on bringing together the best minds, top experts, and policy advocates on a host of issues.
Tuesday's event on AI, scheduled to kick off at 3:00 pm ET, can be viewed at the stream below:
"AI is the most far-reaching and pivotal technological revolution in the history of humanity. It will impact every man, woman, and child in this country and around the globe. It has the potential to reshape the world," notes the Sanders Institute. "The future is not inevitable—and the choices we make now will determine whether those changes make the world better or worse."
"The US Congress is totally unprepared to deal with the consequences," the institute warns. "It is vitally important that we have a serious discussion of how we protect workers, how we protect our privacy, how we protect the health of our children, how we preserve our planet, and how we address the real possibility that AI can become smarter than humans and escape from human control."
Khanna, a potential 2028 presidential candidate who authored the book Progressive Capitalism: How to Make Tech Work for All of Us, has been a leading voice in the US House of Representatives on the issue of AI. In a 2024 New York Times op-ed, Khanna argued that it's vital to ensure that the future of AI and other evolving technologies "center the dignity and economic security of working-class Americans."
Meanwhile, Sanders, who recently introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), highlighted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this month that billionaires are already "investing enormous sums in AI and robotics not to improve life for working families but to expand their own wealth and power."
Klein has similarly sounded the alarm about far-right tech oligarchs, including in a "must-read" essay with Astra Taylor about the fight against "end times fascism" published by The Guardian last year. The pair plans to release a related book in September.
"People in the United States are literally skipping meals and the Republican Congress won’t even hold a hearing about this unplanned disastrous war," said one critic.
A Republican senator on Tuesday tried to sell wary Americans on President Donald Trump's war with Iran by telling them that national security is more important than any financial pain they're feeling in the form of higher energy costs.
During an appearance on Newsmax's "Wake Up America" program, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) tried to assuage Americans' concerns about the spike in gas prices caused by the war by informing viewers that the US is "the leading producer of oil in the world, we're exporting more than we're importing."
Sen. Roger Marshall: "I'm sorry that gas prices are going up, but help is on the way, and your national security is even more important than your pocketbook." pic.twitter.com/GSUEDVHQml
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2026
The US exporting more of its own oil to foreign countries whose regular supplies have been disrupted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz does nothing to lower US gas prices and, if anything, will push them higher.
As a Monday Wall Street Journal article explained, "prices at the pump are poised to keep rising if the US exports more oil and gas and drains its inventories," especially since "the jump in exports doesn’t yet correspond to an increase in US oil production."
Later in the segment, Marshall acknowledged that Americans were feeling pain at the gas pump, but he said it was worth it to stop the supposed threat from Iran, which did not attack the US and, according to US intelligence estimates, was not close to producing nuclear weapons.
"I'm sorry that gas prices are going up," he said. "But help is on the way, and your national security, yes, is even more important than your pocketbook."
Marshall's claims about the Iran War being worth the cost came days after Harvard Kennedy School professor Linda Bilmes, an expert in war budgeting, estimated the total cost of the conflict would top $1 trillion.
Criminal defense attorney Sara Spector pounced on Marshall's comments as symbolic of Republicans' tone deafness to Americans' economic concerns.
"Octogenarians are door dashing to pay for medical bills," she remarked, "and Senator Marshall wants you to pay for a war while Donald Trump golfs and attends VIP sporting events. Wow!"
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Missouri, noted that the GOP-run Congress isn't even having hearings where elected representatives can ask Trump administration officials about the war.
"People in the United States are literally skipping meals and the Republican Congress won’t even hold a hearing about this unplanned disastrous war," Wellman wrote. "No, we won’t accept anymore assurances or urges to sacrifice for the greater good when the leaders won’t even respect us enough to go under oath and tell us why."
Jennifer Schulze, a former local TV news executive, pointed out that the claims about the Iran War being essential to US security were totally false.
"Iran was not: 1.) close to having a nuclear weapon; 2.) Posing an imminent threat to the US," she wrote.
Jon Bauman, president of Social Security Works PAC, said Marshall's claim that high gas prices are worth the cost of launching an unprovoked war with Iran was a "losing argument."