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In their second fatal shooting of the wrong person in just days - and as his three-year-old daughter watched - ICE thugs murdered a young Colombian husband and father legally working in Biddeford, ME for simply trying to driving away. After state Dems blasted the killing and advocates insisted "this has gone too far," ICE waited 12 hours to say they fired "fearing for public safety" while "every law enforcement officer in America was scratching their head trying to figure out what that means."
Talk about following the money. Having somehow railroaded through last year's big obscene bill gifting over $170 billion to immigration and border enforcement - and last month inexplicably adding another $75 billion, seven times ICE’s annual budget (thanks Susan), with virtually no public accounting of how they spend it - the regime is now scurrying to spend their blood money by setting random, armed-to-the-teeth, 2,000-arrests-a-day benchmarks of what have become mere numbers of bodies in an ethnic cleansing of immigrants, brown and black people, or anyone standing near them. What could possibly go wrong?
For starters, a record-breaking mortality rate of 11 people fatally shot, over 20 other deaths in custody, over 70,000 mostly harmless people in concentration-camp-like detention, and a "systemic failure" of accountability. A new report by Physicians for Human Rights and Berkeley's Human Rights Center just added more: At least 412 incidents of "misuse" of brutal crowd-control tactics - teargas, pepper spray, "less-lethal kinetic impact projectiles" from rubber bullets to stun grenades - resulting in over 200 "lasting and traumatic injuries" including blindings, brain trauma, fractures often to journalists, elderly people, children.
As Maine goes, so goes the nation. Monday's murder of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero came after ICE's relatively brief, grotesquely named Operation Catch of the Day last year that saw the arrest of over 500 people, most with no criminal records. Originally from Bucaramanga, Colombia, Guerrero was legally authorized to be here, worked two jobs, had a Social Security card and was going to a delivery job. After some initial confusion/lies, the regime said he was not the intended target of the endlessly inept, homicidal ICE goons; nor were any wearing body cameras that Congress had appropriated $20 million for.
The same lethal incompetence marked last week's murder in Houston TX of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three who'd spent 35 years building homes and raising his U.S. citizen kids, all of whom he helped get through college. He was shot and killed by ICE agents who said he "weaponized" his vehicle; it took about 5 minutes for Araujo's three passengers, who'd witnessed it all and were quickly detained for it, to refute the claim. So did video footage of the deadly encounter. Again, the goons had the wrong guy - and outdated address info - and none were wearing body cameras Congress generously allocated for them.
On Pool Street in Biddeford, a small southern mill city of about 22,000 with a long immigrant history, marauding ICE agents in an SUV rammed the small white Kia Guerrero was driving to work shortly after 7 a.m. Video shows Guerrero, evidently fearful after armed men rammed him, turning his car around and trying to drive away. ICE agents fired what witnesses said were up to seven shots, and at least four smashed through his windshield - though law enforcement guidelines clearly prohibit firing at a moving vehicle unless there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and call for police to (duh) just move away.
A neighbor said he heard a “pop, pop, pop,” looked out his window and saw the car still slowly moving until the SUV hit it again. After the Kia came to a stop, witnesses said Guerrero, bleeding from his head, was pulled from his car; several heard him say, "I tried to stop." Gruesome video shows ICE thugs handcuffing him on the ground, where his soon-lifeless body lay for five hours. Horrified witnesses said goons "yelled" at his young daughter, still in Bluey pajamas, trying to smell some nearby flowers. "I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body," said one. "I watched a little girl with a pink backpack crying because she’s never going to see her father again.”
One upset neighbor said an ICE agent claimed, "He tried to run me over." But here, as elsewhere, ICE has "lost the benefit of the doubt," and the city erupted in grief and rage. By mid-day, hundreds of pissed Mainers had marched, chanting "Whose Streets, Our Streets," to rally in Mechanics Park with signs: "Crush ICE," "Due Process For All," "Immigrants Make Biddeford Great," "Extrajudicial Killings Are A War Crime, and "Is This the America We Want?" Sadie Dilboy said Guerrero often came to her laundromat, giving his daughter quarters to buy vending-machine candy: "He was such a good person. He was always cleaning up.” A worker at Applebee’s, where Guerrero often picked up orders, would always ask if we needed anything: "He was always a good smile to see,” thus clearly "one of those dangerous criminal aliens who have turned America into a living hell."
Later, a crowd of protesters swarmed the local office of Susan Collins with fierce chants of "Vote her out!." One prominent sign, speaking for us all, proclaimed, "Get the Fuck Out." Collins, forever on the wrong and bloody side of history and drunken rapists, was the deciding vote last month to approve the extra, mind-boggling $75 billion in ICE funding, though most Mainers want to see it abolished. Last year, after the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, she voted against both language seeking to curtail further violence and funding for mandatory body cameras, which most thugs are clearly not wearing anyway.
In the wake of yet another senseless murder on America's streets in broad daylight, a presumably very concerned Collins urged "a full and impartial investigation." She did not condemn ICE’s actions, nor did she voice sympathy for the man whose life was just snuffed out. Her staff later cited her vote for a few measures - optional body cameras, more oversight of concentration camps, a paltry $2 million for "de-escalation training" - for better ICE "accountability." As local police blocked her office door, they also noted ICE's "work goes far beyond immigration enforcement to help protect our country" - from brown-skinned delivery drivers, taco makers, contractors, landscapers, nurses, abuelas and kids with cancer. So fuck Susan Collins.
GOP gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles cravenly echoed her: "Maine deserves the truth about what happened." He also urged there be ”no getting ahead of the facts - let facts, not politics, drive our conclusions," adding, "Federal agents put their lives on the line every day...If an agent's life was threatened, he had every right under the law to protect himself" - presumably from brown delivery drivers, contractors, sick kids et al. So fuck him too. He wants facts? Being here legally and driving to work should not cause death by rogue morons looking for someone else. Guerrero lay in the street for five hours. His government didn't bother to name him for almost a day, but his neighbors did. We hope his daughter gets the therapy she'll need.
The largest, darkest question: "How many more people 'not the target' will die before someone in Washington decides the answer to a wrong-vehicle stop cannot be seven rounds through a windshield?" Tuesday, ICE told their goons to suspend most vehicle stops around the country; they declined to disclose "law enforcement tactics" but said they're "always evaluating our procedures to (keep) criminals off our streets," in which case they should probably remove all their own sociopaths. But they likely won't. The outrage was nationwide - "ICE murdered a 26-year-old in front of his wife & daughter. It’s just pure evil" - and global. Colombian President Gustavo Petro: "He was killed because he was believed to be an inferior being with no rights."
Hopefully, his death will impact the electoral chances of Susan Collins, who funded it. Happily, Maine Dems were unshy about voicing their rage at her abetting ICE violence that’s gone on too long. Gov. Janet Mills: “This has to end.” Senate candidate Dr. Nirav Shah, who urged support for immigrants through the Maine Solidarity Fund, blasted Collins for approving billions more for ICE to "terrorize our communities...She gave them a blank check to kill. Maybe sit this one out.” In an angry video, Rep. Chellie Pingree asked ICE, "Why are you in Maine?" given "every report we hear is somebody picked up who's legally here. It's time to get ICE off our streets."
Troy Jackson, a top Senate contender to replace Graham Platner and the only one polls show beating Collins (though several come close) attended a Portland protest Monday, charging "our immigrant communities are under attack" by a rogue ICE that must be abolished. Advocates also argued, "Our communities are hurting." Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition head Mufalo Chita: "We are furious, and we will not allow this death to be treated as routine or inevitable." Crystal Cron of Presente!, on another family "shattered by state violence": “To say we are heartbroken does not convey the depth of the exhaustion, terror, or grief we are feeling."
Maine authorities have struggled to get information from the feds, unsurprising given they just, finally turned over to Minnesota investigators evidence from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. It took over 12 hours, till Monday night, for ICE to name their victim and say, in fascist gobbledygook, "an illegal alien" tried to "flee" during "a targeted surveillance" and a goon, "fearing for public safety," "discharged his weapon.” Notably, there was no claim of a driver "weaponizing" his vehicle, leaving national law enforcement "stunned" as to why anyone fired: “If you want to arrest someone, this is a good example of how to do everything wrong."
Murdering brown people in cold blood for no reason is likewise a good example of how to topple democratic governance and the rule of law. “Does the senseless murder of this man make any of our lives better in any way?" asked Kelli Brennan of the Maine State Nurses Association. Critics argue every member of Congress who voted for more money for ICE or DHS has blood on their hands; so do their supporters. During last spring's shutdown, Susan Collins, that act's deciding vote, whined it wasn't "fair" to those thugs to have a "cloud of uncertainty" over whether they'd be paid. “They are keeping us safe,” she mewled. Fuck Susan Collins and the incomparable real-world damage she's done. Vote like your life and many others depend on it, because they do. Fundraiser here.

On the heels of young Canadians suing over Prime Minister Mark Carney’s climate "failure" and people across the country mobilizing to urge the government to "stop fast-tracking destruction," the Liberal leader on Thursday made a pair of fossil fuel-related announcements that sparked fresh anger.
Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of the United Conservative Party announced that the province is partnering with the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation and Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corporation for a proposed tar sands pipeline that would bring more oil to British Columbia's west coast.
"The proposed pipeline would generally follow the existing footprint of the federally owned Trans Mountain pipeline, running from Bruderheim, northeast of Edmonton, to the Roberts Bank export terminal in Delta, BC, south of Vancouver," the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. "Smith said the project would send more than 1 million barrels to Asian markets every day, reducing Canada's reliance on the US."
"The Alberta government's submission to the federal government's Major Projects Office said the project would cost between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion, including contingencies. Construction would start as early as 2027 and finish by 2034," CBC noted. "As for who foots the bill, Smith said detailed funding and the cost for taxpayers 'remains to be negotiated.'"
Sounding the alarm about the plans with a Friday blog post, 350 Canada country manager Atiya Jaffar wrote, "In other words, we can get ready to expect $35-100 billion of our taxpayer dollars wasted on building this dangerous pipe dream."
"Canada is headed in a dangerous direction. Expanding tar sands and the fracked gas industry is like pouring fuel on the flames of the climate emergency," she argued, urging Canadians to pressure their members of Parliament to sign what the advocacy group is calling a "People's MOU," a jab at the memorandum of understanding the federal and Alberta governments signed last year.
This week, heatwaves gripped communities across the country as we marked the 5 year anniversary of the 2021 Heat Dome. And yet, this is the week that Carney, Eby, and Danielle Smith teamed up to announce their plans to burn away our future! 350.org/west-coast-p...
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— 350 Canada (@350canada.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Smith and Carney's pipeline press conference came after shortly after the PM and BC Premier David Eby announced a "cooperative prosperity agreement" that the Wilderness Committee condemned as "an abandonment of both governments' efforts to fight climate change and protect the environment," given its provisions on the province's liquefied natural gas (LNG) and mining endeavors.
Although Eby, a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), "has been a prominent critic of the Carney government's work with Alberta on pipeline plans," Politico reported Thursday, the provincial leader cut short a trip to Beijing, where he traveled to meet with PetroChina executives about LNG production, "to be at the prime minister's side" for the announcement.
Eby tried to stress that "this agreement doesn't require us to support any pipeline proposal from Alberta. However, as I've said before, we recognize our constitutional position, and we do not have the authority to stop a new pipeline. We will not be going to court to fight a pipeline project. Instead, we will ensure we fulfill our constitutional obligations in good faith."
"Pipelines are federal jurisdiction," he continued. "That's why this agreement matters. It ensures that the northern tanker ban stays in place, and it ensures that if a pipeline goes ahead, that British Columbians are fairly compensated for the environmental risks we would take on any new pipeline project."
Mark Carney, Danielle Smith and David Eby chose this record shattering #heatwave (which extends into Ontario & Quebec) as the backdrop for their plans to spend billions of dollars of our public $ to extract & export more fossil fuels. How do you feel about that? #cdnpoli #bcpoli #onpoli
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— Climate Justice Victoria (@climatejusticeyyj.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 12:01 PM
The Wilderness Committee's conservation and policy campaigner Lucero González responded, "Eby said he will ensure British Columbians are compensated for the environmental damage of another pipeline, but there is no compensation for the extinction of the southern resident orcas."
"How do you compensate for the unimaginable pain of an endangered orca like Tahlequah who has shown us her dead calves throughout the Salish Sea while each new megaproject continues to destroy their habitat?" González inquired.
Pointing to not only the potential increase in tanker traffic and oil spill risk but also the federal government's "proposed evisceration" of the Species at Risk Act, González declared that "Carney is showing us his enthusiastic willingness to accept and fund the extinction of endangered species and a future where oil and private profit are more valuable than the entire Salish Sea ecosystem.
As Politico highlighted, the prime minister's motivations for pushing the new pipeline include combating a separatist movement in one of the involved provinces:
The project is also aimed at easing separatist tensions in Alberta, where voters will decide in October if they want to hold a referendum to separate from Canada. Smith has blamed "10 years of bad Liberal policy" under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for fueling western alienation, pointing to climate rules and energy regulations she says hurt Alberta’s economy.
In a 17-minute video posted to his YouTube channel earlier this week, Carney acknowledged that his government’s energy policies will increase emissions. He argued that the climate policies championed by Trudeau had become a political wedge—and fodder for Alberta separatists.
Even before the video, advocacy organizations had partnered with a trio of young citizens in June to take legal action over the prime minister failing to bring Canada's 2030 emissions reduction plan into compliance with a key federal law.
Julia Levin of Environmental Defence, one of the groups behind the case, said last month that "PM Carney is betraying Canadians by taking a wrecking ball to our hard-fought climate progress. It is Canadians who are paying the price through wildfires, heat domes, rising food insecurity and high costs of living."
The pipeline announcement begins with Carney acknowledging, without a hint of irony, the “biblical weather” in Ottawa yesterday.Extreme weather huh? Like the kind exacerbated by climate change? You don’t say! Hm!!!!
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— Rachel Gilmore (@rachelgilmore.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 8:43 PM
The Wilderness Committee's associate director, Torrance Coste, similarly said Friday that "at a time when people across the country are suffering in extreme heat, wildfire evacuations, and devastating floods, pursuing the expansion of Canada's most polluting industry is utterly despicable."
"In the fight against climate change, Prime Minister Carney and Premier Eby are issuing their surrender, and resigning us to a future of ecological and economic decline," Coste added.
Stephen Harper's dream can finally be realized! And all it took was to screw over the next generations by destroying our climate and the livability of the planet.
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— Charles Latimer (@ch4rlie.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 2:52 PM
While Eby flew home to be by the prime minister's side for Thursday's first announcement, the NDP's recently elected national leader, Avi Lewis, delivered a scathing rebuke of a federal government that he said "will protect above all else: the profits of Big Oil."
"As we mark the five-year anniversary of a heat dome that killed 619 people in British Columbia—and as many communities across the country are facing extreme weather right now—Canadians deserve leadership that protects us," Lewis argued on social media. "Instead, this government is doubling down on yesterday's failed solutions and dragging us into further danger, risk, and insecurity."
The pipeline's "opaque and confusing public-private partnership ownership structure means it's very likely that we, the public, will not only bear the risks and the damages, but also the lion's share of the costs," he warned. "Canada's New Democrats unequivocally oppose this pipeline proposal. If anything, this is a pipeline to the courts. It ignores the federal government's legal responsibility to meaningfully consult Indigenous nations, including Treaty 8 nations in Alberta, threatens endangered species, and accelerates climate change. It will sow the very divisions the prime minister claims he wants to avoid."
"We do not achieve unity or prosperity from projects that pit communities against one another, all while a handful of oil and gas CEOs walk away with enormous profits," he continued. "While we're stuck fighting yesterday's battles over pipelines, and the prime minister openly admits that our emissions will rise, the rest of the world is racing ahead on renewables. We cannot afford to fall behind while other countries build the industries of the future. "
According to the NDP leader: "Canadians deserve better than being told our only choice is another fight over another pipeline. This country needs an alternative to the Liberal-Conservative consensus that is doubling down on a future of climate-wrecking corporate welfare."
"New Democrats are ready to build something bigger, safer, and better—a Canada that is a renewable energy superpower, with an east-west clean electricity grid and good green jobs in every region," he concluded. "Lower costs for families with home retrofits and heat pumps for all. Investing in the care economy as a nation-building project. That's what it looks like to build big things that actually unite this country."
A US small business coalition on Wednesday released a state-by-state analysis detailing how President Donald Trump's capricious tariffs have cost American businesses and consumers upward of $317 billion since March 2025.
We Pay the Tariffs launched an interactive map, which uses data compiled by the international research firm Trade Partnership Worldwide, LLC to show the costs from additional tariffs the Trump administration has imposed by illegally invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—a move blocked by the US Supreme Court in February—and by using Sections 122, 232, and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
With Section 122 tariffs—which impose a 10% surcharge on imports from almost all countries—set to expire on July 24, the Trump administration has said it will replace them with permanent Section 301 tariffs, which, according to We Pay the Tariffs will add "new costs on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars businesses have already paid."
"The latest figures are a damning indictment of tariffs’ impact on the US economy, with lots of pain but little gains for American workers, businesses, and families," We Pay the Tariffs executive director Dan Anthony said on Wednesday. "The trade deficit is up, goods exports and manufacturing jobs are down, and inflation is at its highest level in years. It’s disappointing that the administration is barreling ahead with a flurry of new tariffs despite the results to date."
In an open letter to members of Congress signed by small businesses across the country, the coalition noted that "once new tariffs take effect, history shows they are rarely undone."
"The Section 301 statute says tariffs should terminate after four years. Yet Section 301 tariffs imposed by the first Trump administration in 2018 were continued by the Biden administration, and remain in effect today," the letter states. "So do many Section 232 tariffs imposed in 2018 and expanded upon in 2025. There is no reason to expect this pattern to change."
The coalition argued that this is why "Congress must act before more Section 301 and 232 tariffs take effect."
"This is not a partisan issue. Tariffs are deeply and broadly unpopular with American voters," the letter asserts. "They are hurting small businesses in every state. Tariffs are taxes, and no president should be able to unilaterally impose hundreds of billions in permanent new taxes without a vote of Congress."
Progressive economists and consumer advocates argue that tariffs function as a regressive tax, falling disproportionately on working-class families who spend a larger share of their income on consumer goods. They warn that Trump administration tariff policies have also aided large corporations at the expense of smaller competitors.
Critics also note that the tariffs have failed to deliver the manufacturing renaissance promised by Trump, noting that the sector has still shed tens of thousands of jobs even as output increases due to automation, and that workers have seen few benefits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in additional import taxes paid by businesses and consumers.
"We paid—and will be forced to keep paying—the tariffs," the coalition letter concludes. "We need Congress to act now, before a permanent tariff regime is imposed on small businesses across America."
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed proclamations dramatically shrinking the size of two national monuments in Utah, eliminating roughly 3 million acres of protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante and potentially opening the beloved, wildlife-rich areas to industry exploitation.
Trump's proclamations, issued at the urging of Utah Republicans including Sen. Mike Lee, aim to reduce Bears Ears to just under 121,100 acres (down from nearly 1.4 million) and Grand Staircase-Escalante to 181,541 acres (down from 1.87 million). The president declared in his orders—which opponents say are unlawful—that the areas he's stripping of their monument designation contain "several resources that are vital to energy and resource independence," including silver, copper, uranium, and zinc.
The orders were met with immediate outrage from tribes, Democratic lawmakers, and conservationists. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that the president has "illegally opened up two of the most extraordinary landscapes in America at the behest of polluting corporations who seek to ravage them for short-term profits."
"Trump has been selling out our public lands and waters since the day he took office," said Huffman, pointing to previous attacks on the monuments during the president's first White House term. "Trump tried this once before. We fought him then, and we are ready to fight him now, because no president should have the power to give away what belongs to the American people, including future generations. Keep public lands in public hands.”
Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said his organization "will challenge this unlawful decision in federal court" and expressed confidence that Trump's "reckless and unlawful acts will be rejected."
“Today’s action makes it clear that Utah is the epicenter of Republican efforts to dismantle and obliterate America’s system of public lands," said Braden. "President Trump’s outrageous attack on Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments was taken at the urging of Utah politicians—Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, Gov. Spencer Cox, and the others—who championed this action. These two landscapes deserve to be protected for current and future generations of Utahns and Americans, not opened to exploitation."
During a signing ceremony on Monday, flanked by Utah Republicans, Trump characterized his scaling back of monument protections as an effort to give land "back to the people of Utah." The president falsely claimed that people could "virtually not even walk on" the lands under the protections he targeted.
"You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing," the president said, incorrectly. "You can’t do anything."
Trump's proclamations cite authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which empowers the president to "reserve parcels of land as a part of the national monuments." But opponents of Trump's assault on the two Utah national monuments noted that the law does not explicitly authorize the president to scale back protections implemented by previous administrations.
In 2021, then-President Joe Biden restored protections to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante after Trump's first attempt to gut them in 2017. Trump's new assault on the two national monuments goes much further than the previous one. (The far-right Project 2025 agenda, which Trump has repeatedly tried to disavow despite his ties to its architects, called for the downsizing of national monuments and repeal of the Antiquities Act.)
"President Trump’s attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments is just as illegal today as it was in 2017,” Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office, said in a statement on Monday. "The Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to designate national monuments, not to destroy them. Today’s proclamations are a slap to the face of public lands visitors across the country, as well as the local communities and tribes that have worked for years to protect these special places. Earthjustice and our partners are prepared to vigorously defend the monuments once again."
Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, said Monday that "our tribes were not informed of or asked about this decision, and that’s unacceptable."
“Today’s action is a direct strike against the federal government’s duty to consult with tribes," said Gillard. "It also profoundly disrespects our intergenerational traditional knowledge by destroying a framework for tribal co-stewardship over our ancestral lands in which we invested years of effort. Today’s action cannot stand."
Federal, state, and local law enforcement agents' brutal attacks on protesters across the US have caused blindings, traumatic brain injuries, permanent disabilities, and other maladies, according to a report released Monday by researchers at Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
In an examination of actions taken by authorities in response to demonstrations against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions over the span of a year, the report documents 412 instances of misuse of force against protesters, journalists, and bystanders.
Just over half of the misuses of force were directed at demonstrators, while 43% were directed at journalists, the report finds.
This misuse of force led to 203 documented injuries affecting 119 individuals, including 44 incidents of laceration, 19 traumatic brain injuries, 10 ocular injuries, seven permanent disabilities, and one instance each of amputation and hearing loss.
The report adds that the actual number of injuries inflicted upon anti-ICE demonstrators "is likely far greater" given researchers' limitations in documenting "invisible injuries" such as chronic pain or hearing loss.
What is particularly troubling, the report emphasizes, is the number of injuries impacting people's heads.
"The high number of head injuries (19 brain, 10 eye, 1 hearing loss) suggests a pattern of force directed towards the head," the researchers write. "Whether intentionally or recklessly, this violates virtually all use-of-force guidelines and results in significant harm."
The report documents 97 incidents of law enforcement officials shooting crowd control projectiles at people's heads, making it the second-most frequent type of improper force used, following shots taken at close range.
Dr. Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report, said in an interview with The Guardian that she started tracking misuse of force in response to anti-ICE protests after a federal agent shot a pastor in the face at close range during a demonstration in Oakland last year.
"Those weapons can cause harm,” said Haar, who for years has been researching the health impacts of crowd control weapons. "It’s just when they’re used, how they’re used, and if they’re used."
Tactics used by ICE and other law enforcement agencies have come back into focus over the last week after the fatal ICE shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine over the span of less than a week.
Salgado Araujo, 52, was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had lived in the US for more than three decades and ran a small construction business. Sebastian Guerrero, 26, was a Colombian national who was authorized to work in the US and was shot and killed by ICE in front of his three-year-old daughter.
The Iranian foreign minister on Monday mocked President Donald Trump's announcement that he was renewing the US blockade of Iran and that he expected a 20% fee from commercial vessels for "guarding" the key waterway.
"POTUS is absolutely right," the minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, wrote on social media. "Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service."
"Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER," he added. "20% is of course too much. We will be fair."
Trump had called in to "Fox & Friends" on Monday. He said on-air that the United States would be "the guardian angel of the strait" and "we're gonna get paid for guarding it."
Later Monday morning, he had written on Truth Social that "the U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World."
Critics and experts have highlighted that Trump's 20% toll is far higher than the 1-2% sought by Iran, and warned that Trump had perhaps unintentionally bolstered Iran's case for imposing its own fee on ships in the strait.
Others have pointed out that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists just a few weeks ago that "no country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law. That's the way it is in international waterways all over the world, and that's the way we expect it'll be here. So I don't think we have anybody to convince around here in that regard. I think all the countries in this region would agree with us."
His comments came one day after the largest power grid in the US announced massive rate hikes and said the "primary driver of that growth is data centers."
After New York’s Democratic governor enacted a temporary ban on the construction of large data centers to curb their enormous power consumption, President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, made the evidence-free claim that the facilities are actually the “greatest tool” for reducing the sharp increases in energy prices.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order barring for one year the construction of "hyperscale" data centers that can consume 50 megawatts of power or more, saying that unchecked expansion "threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers."
New York was the first state to place a moratorium on data center development, and more than a dozen other states have considered enacting moratoriums as evidence has mounted that data centers tend to spike power demand and drive up costs.
But as the rapid growth of data centers has sparked furious backlash in communities of all political stripes, the industry has maintained a steadfast ally in the Trump administration, which has continued to champion rapid data center buildout by fast-tracking permits, opening federal land to developers, promoting new energy infrastructure, and offering federal financing and tax incentives to new projects.
On Wednesday morning, Wright took to Fox News to blast Hochul's block on data center development.
"Gov. Hochul has it exactly backward," he said. "Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down."
Wright, a former fracking executive, protested that “Democrat green energy policies” were responsible for driving up energy prices in New York, pointing to its ban on fracking, the blocking of a major natural gas pipeline, and an “insane climate law” requiring the state to transition away from fossil fuels by 2040.
"Energy is extremely expensive in New York and now sparse because of bad Democrat policies," he said. "Nothing to do with data centers."
Wright did not elaborate on how exactly data centers could be used as a "tool" to bring down energy prices. But if this is the case, nobody has informed the energy companies themselves.
His comments came just a day after PJM, which serves 67 million customers and is the nation's largest electric grid operator, released the results of an electricity auction that added $6.3 billion in costs to consumers' energy bills in 2028-29 due to growth in energy demand.
"The primary driver of that growth is data centers," the company said in a press release. "New data center facilities and expansions of existing sites can be developed quickly, up to two to three times faster than many of the electricity generation technologies that are necessary to serve them and allow PJM to maintain the reliability customers expect."
That increase is not confined to the future. It has already begun. According to Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, since 2024, the auctions have added $29 billion in costs to the customers across the 13 states plus Washington, DC, where it operates. New York is not one of the states supplied by the PJM grid.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has found that recent PJM auction increases have added as much as $20-30 to monthly bills in some parts of the company's regions, and projects that continued data-center growth could eventually add roughly $70 per month for an average household.
The labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union, which has published many pieces documenting the effects of data centers on American communities, called Wright's claim "one of the most blatant lies we’ve ever heard."
"Data centers are pushing energy prices up," the outlet said. "That is not a matter of debate, it’s a fact."
"These stops are not effective at 'fighting crime.' They’re effective at terrorizing immigrants," said one critic.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement restart its traffic stops just one day after the agency mostly paused them.
In a Truth Social post, Trump argued that the government "CANNOT give up one of ICE's most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!"
"Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s (sic) hands," the president added. "The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won't happen on my watch. ICE, be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job."
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday announced it would temporarily halt traffic stops after ICE officers fatally shot two people—52-year-old Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and 26-year-old Colombian national Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine—in the span of a week.
The shootings sparked outrage and prompted Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the most vulnerable Senate Republican this election cycle, to ask Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to stop ICE traffic stops.
Trump's demand to reinstate the stops drew sharp criticism.
Journalist Radley Balko said that Trump's purported concern for crime was just an excuse for him to carry out a nationwide intimidation campaign.
"These stops are not effective at 'fighting crime,'" Balko wrote. "They’re effective at terrorizing immigrants. That’s what he doesn't want to give up."
Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst, similarly argued that the traffic stop policy "has nothing to do with fighting crime."
"It is effective at terrorizing the American public though," Helt added. "I suspect that’s the point."
Attorney Will Stancil, who monitored ICE actions during its siege of Minnesota earlier this year, said the reversal on traffic stops raises broader questions about Americans' tolerance for a rogue law enforcement agency.
"I’m probably biased but it’s starting to feel like the conflict over ICE is going to be the defining feature of Trump’s second term," Stancil wrote. "Will America have an unaccountable paramilitary terror force serving at the whim of the regime, or will we be a nation of laws?"
Andrew O'Neill, national advocacy director for Indivisible, summed up Trump's policy reversal by remarking that "the state-sanctioned murders will continue until morale improves."
Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief at MeidasTouch, said Trump's announcement will be damaging to Collins as she faces a tough campaign this year. Collins recently voted to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for ICE.
"Susan Collins assured the people of Maine yesterday that she persuaded Markwayne Mullin to stop ICE traffic stops," Filipkowski wrote. "Trump overruled her."
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, said that Collins still had options for forcing Trump's hand to end the traffic stops.
"The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee might be able to do something about this if she wanted to," Finucane wrote.
"The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide."
A pair of advocacy organizations on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump and top members of his administration over sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court and its supporters, arguing the punitive measures violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution and illegally "muzzle Palestine advocacy."
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), contends that Trump's Executive Order 14203 unlawfully restricts Americans' ability to seek "justice on Palestine at the ICC" and work with human rights organizations sanctioned "solely for calling on the ICC to investigate Israeli and American nationals."
"The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders but to police the political expression of millions of Americans," said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN. "The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide."
DAWN notes that, under Trump's February 2025 executive order, the administration has sanctioned ICC officials "as well as leading Palestinian human rights groups al-Haq, al-Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)," as well as Francesca Albanese, the United Nations' special rapporteur for the human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Trump's order authorizes sanctions against "any foreign person" deemed to have "materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of," ICC efforts to "investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute" Americans or officials from allied nations, such as Israel.
The organizations behind the new lawsuit explain that "because the government can interpret the term 'service' to encompass anything that confers a benefit on the recipient, groups like DAWN and TAAG could face civil and criminal charges if they engage in routine advocacy with the sanctioned parties—for example, filing a brief with the ICC encouraging it to investigate possible crimes, sharing evidence or advocacy ideas with Palestinian human rights groups or Ms. Albanese, or working with them on a campaign to lift the sanctions."
“The chilling effect on plaintiffs has been profound,” the lawsuit states. “They now face prison terms and ruinous fines if, in their interactions with the designated parties, they provide or receive anything that defendants could plausibly characterize as a ‘service’—an extraordinarily capacious term that potentially reaches any act that confers a benefit on its recipient. Fearing liability, plaintiffs—and countless others like them—have turned to self-censorship.”
Tarik Kanaana, president of TAAG, said that "with this executive order, Trump has put himself and those in the U.S. government above the law, shielding them from any accountability for their roles in the genocide in Palestine and Lebanon and for war crimes around the globe funded by US taxpayers."
"As US taxpayers, we have the right to hold our government accountable for how it uses this public resource," said Kanaana. "That right cannot be taken away."
The lawsuit comes days after the US State Department launched a sweeping broadside against the ICC, an independent tribunal based in The Hague that investigates and prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities. In late 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, one of the Trump administration officials named as a plaintiff in the new lawsuit, vowed on Monday to "dismantle" the ICC with increasingly aggressive sanctions against the court and its supporters and international pressure. (Neither the US nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.)
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary-general, warned in a statement on Tuesday that if nations fail to fight back against the US assault on the ICC, "they will acquiesce to a new era of lawlessness, impunity, and rampant injustice."
"Now is not the time to appease. Now is the time to resist," said Callamard. "For the good of humanity, victims’ hopes of justice, and the prospect of lasting global security, the international community must come together, stand up to the bullies in the White House and State Department and protect the international rule of law. We must not accept a reality where the most powerful have the least legal responsibility.”