January, 22 2026, 11:37am EDT
Jack Smith to Detail Trump’s Criminal Misconduct Before Congress and the Public
Today, former special counsel Jack Smith will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in a public hearing to explain why he indicted President Trump, countering the president’s baseless assertion that the indictments were politically motivated. In response, Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Today, Jack Smith will have a chance to tell the public what he has told lawmakers in private— namely how a jury would have found Trump guilty of a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, if the evidence from his time as special counsel was utilized. Republicans are only now allowing this hearing simply because Judge Cannon’s injunction keeping the second volume of Jack Smith’s report private is about to expire. Keeping the truth locked away is an assault on the rule of law and on the transparency owed to the American people.
“Today will give the American people an opportunity to hear the facts that were collected against the authoritarian President Donald Trump, and why he was lawfully indicted due to violations of federal law; ones that did incredible damage to our democracy.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Analysis Warns Bipartisan Senate Permitting Bill Would Lock In Trump-Era Data Center, Fossil Fuel Approvals
“Any permitting deal passed under this administration must strengthen the guardrails that keep Burgum and Trump in check, not hand them a blank check," said one advocate.
Oct 22, 2026
An analysis out this week warns that should the US Senate pass the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 after the midterm elections, communities across the country can expect to live with the consequences for decades to come, as the permitting bill would allow the Trump administration to swiftly approve data centers, nuclear facilities, and fossil fuel infrastructure—and "then make those approvals nearly impossible to reverse" after President Donald Trump is out of office.
As Common Dreams reported last month, the bipartisan bill could significantly weaken the Endangered Species Act in the interest of speeding up infrastructure projects.
Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said Wednesday in an analysis at the group's blog, Westwise, that the bill also contains three provisions that would be "disastrous for America’s public lands."
Section 1401 of the legislation would "lock in" development of data centers, nuclear energy facilities, and other projects "the minute" they were greenlit by the federal government.
It states that agencies "shall not take any new action that would revoke, rescind, withdraw, terminate, suspend, amend, or alter” any federal permit in effect on or after September 16, 2026, with few exceptions.
Section 1401 also weakens a court's authority to pause a construction project if it finds an agency did not complete a thorough or accurate environmental review of the project—essentially turning a court-ordered review into "an empty paperwork exercise," according to Justin Pidot, a University of Arizona law professor who served as general counsel of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
"A judge can send the review back for a redo, but construction continues in the meantime, and Section 1401 bars the agency from changing the permit based on what the new review finds," wrote Weiss. "Challengers also get just 150 days to sue."
Finally, Weiss pointed to Section 1402 of the bill, which says that if an agency changes a previously approved permit and a court finds they cannot move forward with the project, "taxpayers would owe the developer 25% to 50% of everything it has spent."
"If a future administration slows a whole category of projects, such as gas plants or nuclear fuel facilities, developers can collect 50% to 100% of a project’s expected construction cost," wrote Weiss.
"This disastrous bill would permanently scar our natural heritage and sacrifice clean water, wildlife, and the health of our communities just to make the wealthiest people on Earth even richer.”
Should the bill pass, any permit in effect on or after September 16, 2026 would be protected under the provisions, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would have 27 months, until Trump's term is over, to approve more projects that would also be shielded from actions by future presidents.
But the bill "spares everything the Trump administration has done to mess with clean energy permits,” wrote Matthew Littleton, a former Justice Department lawyer—meaning it does nothing to lift Trump's actions blocking wind and solar energy projects.
Weiss called on the bill's sponsors, including longtime public lands advocate Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), to salvage the bill by engaging "with the tribes, the communities, and the millions of Americans who have made clear they don’t want data centers and nuclear waste forced onto their public lands or into their backyards."
According to a poll released in August by Embold Research, 75% of Americans now oppose building data centers in their area.
Heinrich, said Weiss in a statement, has claimed that the bill "will age very well over time."
"As it’s currently written, it will indeed age, locking in data centers and a new nuclear legacy on our public lands for generations—after all, the half-life of plutonium-239 is about 24,000 years," continued Weiss. “Any permitting deal passed under this administration must strengthen the guardrails that keep Burgum and Trump in check, not hand them a blank check. Sen. Heinrich should pump the brakes on this bill during the lame duck session and work with leaders in the next Congress to get it right.”
The analysis came as more than 100 groups called on Congress to oppose the bipartisan bill, which is also sponsored by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah).
“Here in Utah, where 73% of voters oppose fast-tracking oil, gas, and mining projects on public land, we say America’s worst ideas come from the desk of Sen. Mike Lee,” said Olivia Juarez, GreenLatinos public land program director. “This bill exemplifies what we mean. Its only guarantee is blocked public land access, dangerous air quality, and reckless exclusion of public input on how we treat the places we should pass on to future generations in a better condition than we received them. It’s a handout to the fossil fuel and AI industries, and a rubber stamp on wildlife extinction and climate disaster.”
Ashley C. Nunes, a public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that "handing our public lands over to corporate polluters and tech billionaires is a staggering betrayal of all Americans."
"It will put irreplaceable public lands at the mercy of industries bent on exploiting them," she said. "This disastrous bill would permanently scar our natural heritage and sacrifice clean water, wildlife, and the health of our communities just to make the wealthiest people on Earth even richer.”
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Largest US Corporations Paid Lowest-Ever Tax Rate in 2025 Thanks to Trump and GOP: Study
"At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes."
Oct 22, 2026
Some of the biggest US corporations paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 10.4% last year as Republican legislation passed by President Donald Trump disproportionately benefited businesses and the superrich while eviscerating key social programs, a study published Thursday revealed.
The 706 corporations examined by the Washington, DC-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reported a combined $1.88 trillion in US profits in 2025, yet paid less than half the statutory federal corporate income tax rate of 21%. Of those companies, the study found that 114 paid no federal income taxes at all.
Those 706 companies collectively paid current federal corporate income taxes equal to just 10.4% of that $1.88 trillion, "the lowest effective rate that ITEP has uncovered in over 40 years of analyzing corporate income taxes," according to the analysis.
The study attributes this to two major tax laws enacted under Trump: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—derided at the time as the "GOP Tax Scam"—slashed the statutory corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, while the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by the president last year expanded and made permanent the 2017 cuts.
NEW: U.S. corporations are paying the lowest tax rate seen in decades.706 major corporations collectively paid a federal income tax rate of just 10.4%, less than half the statutory rate.114 corporations paid zero.itep.org/corporate-ta...
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— ITEP (@itep.org) October 22, 2026 at 8:30 AM
"These findings show just how dramatically the corporate tax system has been tilted in favor of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful companies,” ITEP senior fellow Matt Gardner, who co-authored the report, said in a statement.
“At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes," he added. "This is not an accident. It is the predictable outcome of deliberate policy choices that have steadily eroded the corporate tax base."
Among the report's key findings:
- The 114 companies that paid no current federal income tax last year include Tesla, Walt Disney, CVS, Citigroup, United Airlines, and DoorDash;
- 258 corporations paid effective tax rates below 7%, or less than one-third of the statutory rate;
- Those 258 companies reported $683 billion in US profits but paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 1.7%;
- The 706 corporations studied received $198 billion in federal tax subsidies by paying less than the statutory 21% rate;
- They also benefited from an additional $263 billion in tax savings attributable to the 2017 reduction of the statutory rate from 35% to 21%; and
- Just 25 corporations accounted for more than half of the 2025 tax subsidies, with Alphabet ($18.9 billion), Microsoft ($18.7 billion), Amazon ($17.4 billion), and Meta ($13.9 billion) among the largest beneficiaries.
While proponents of subsidies claim they are necessary to encourage investment, the new study raises questions about why some of the nation's most profitable corporations should receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies while vital social programs upon which tens of millions of Americans rely, like Medicaid and food stamps, suffer historic cuts under Republican legislation.
“Congress has repeatedly chosen to expand tax breaks for corporations that are already extraordinarily profitable,” said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP's federal policy director and co-author of the report. “Rather than continuing to subsidize corporate investments and reward aggressive tax avoidance, lawmakers should close these loopholes and ensure that large corporations pay a meaningful share of their profits in taxes.”
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Meet the Corporations Funding Ramaswamy's Vicious Attack Ad on Acton
Corporate PACs for Bank of America, Deloitte, Kroger, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and others have donated to the campaign fund running the ad, which has been criticized for exploiting Acton's history of sexual abuse.
Oct 22, 2026
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign is spending millions in the final weeks of his bid for Ohio governor to run an attack ad that has been criticized for exploiting his opponent Amy Acton's history of sexual abuse. The campaign is being funded by some of Ohio's and the nation's most powerful corporations and executives.
The ad, which emerged earlier this week, features Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, accusing her daughter of lying about her experiences of homelessness as a child, including living in a tent. Acton, now 60, said she hasn't spoken to Arthur since 1978, when she was removed from the household after accusing her stepfather of sexually abusing her from ages 10 to 12.
Acton's brother has backed up her account, noting that their mother skipped town with Acton's stepfather after he was arrested and charged, and stayed with him until the day he died.
Acton, the former head of the Ohio Department of Health, had described her history of abuse and poverty for years before running for governor. Court records from the time have corroborated many aspects of the siblings' account, showing that she lived in a tent with her family near Youngstown. Her stepfather was also charged with incest in 1974 for allegedly raping his eldest daughter.
Observers have panned the ad as "disgusting." On Thursday, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called the ad "just wrong" and said it should be taken down. With support from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, however, Ramaswamy's campaign is doubling down on the message and is spending $4 million to blast the ad across the airwaves in the Buckeye State.
The ad is being funded by Vivek for Ohio, a campaign fund backed in part by dozens of major corporate political action committees (PACs) and executives, according to a review of campaign finance documents published Thursday by Popular Information.
Vivek for Ohio is funded by corporate PACs for Bank of America, Deloitte, Kroger, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Duke Energy, Charter Communications, Centene, Giant Eagle, PNC, US Bank, and BakerHostetler.
The corporate PACs for Huntington Bank, Nationwide, and NetJets also contributed to the campaign, along with their CEOs, Steve Steinour, Kirt Walker, and Adam Johnson, respectively.
Several individual executives and sports owners also contributed to Ramaswamy's campaign: DraftKings CEO Jason Robins; Rocket Companies founder Dan Gilbert; Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown; Cincinnati Reds owner Bob Castellini; Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam; and Haslam Sports Group president Dave Jenkins.
Popular Information said it contacted the companies to ask whether they believed the ad was acceptable. DraftKings declined to comment, and the others did not respond.
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Big Tech Has Become the 'Ubiquitous Villain' of the 2026 Midterms
"Trump and his anti-AI regulation posture is dragging the party to a politically suicidal place," said one Democratic strategist.
Oct 22, 2026
American voters' antipathy toward Big Tech companies has become a central theme of campaigns in the 2026 midterm elections, according to an analysis published by The Guardian on Thursday.
The Guardian noted that hundreds of midterm campaign ads attacking data centers have aired over the past two months, with both Republicans and Democrats accusing one another of being pawns of the artificial intelligence industry.
"And it’s not only data centers," The Guardian added. "The public anxiety over AI and distaste for the billionaires developing it, as well as backlash over encroaching tech like surveillance cameras, has turned the tech industry into a ubiquitous villain this election cycle."
Silicon Valley has become a punching bag for politicians even as Big Tech moguls have been throwing record sums of money to elect politicians sympathetic to their needs.
Super political action committees (PACs) "funded by tech billionaires are among the top spenders in this election cycle," The Guardian explained. "Leading the Future, formed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, has raised more than $75 million to back tech-friendly candidates. [SpaceX CEO] Elon Musk has sunk $366 million into Republican causes, more than he spent on the 2024 presidential election."
Much of the Big Tech money has been going toward Republican candidates this cycle, even though the industry has traditionally had close ties with elected Democrats.
Texas Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico in recent days has been trying to turn Big Tech money being spent against him into an advantage, highlighting in particular the outsize role that Musk is playing funding the campaign of his Republican rival, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
After Musk on Wednesday used his platform X to declare that "there is something deeply wrong with Talarico," the Texas Democrat quickly returned fire.
"There is something deeply wrong with a political system," Talarico wrote, "that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US senator."
A report published by The Atlantic on Monday examined how the tech industry's embrace of President Donald Trump during his second term has given Democrats an incentive to pummel the industry, particularly when polls show a bipartisan hostility to AI data centers.
In fact, Democratic strategists told The Atlantic that data centers have proven to be a top wedge issue capable of getting normally loyal GOP voters to think twice before voting for a Republican candidate.
"Trump and his anti-AI regulation posture is dragging the party to a politically suicidal place,” Democratic strategist Rob Flaherty told The Atlantic. "They are grabbing the wrong side of an 80–20 issue at exactly the wrong time."
Democratic strategists started pushing the party to take a more populist approach toward the tech industry when polling data "showed surprising concern about AI" even in traditionally conservative rural districts, The Atlantic reported.
Rishi Bharwani, US director of tech regulation advocacy group Reset Tech, said much has changed since Democrats under former President Barack Obama embraced the industry as a positive force for society.
“What we all experienced was a ton of growth in the tech sector, the creation of numerous new billionaires, and even the world’s first trillionaire," said Bharwani, "and a bunch of working families basically recognizing that they’re not sharing. These tech companies are actually undermining their economic security and their safety."
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From Bad to Catastrophic: Report Details How Trump's GOP 'Taking This Country Backward' on Healthcare
A new report warns that President Donald Trump and the GOP's assault on key healthcare programs is set to push up the number of uninsured people to 37 million—a level not seen in more than a decade.
Oct 22, 2026
A comprehensive report on the state of the for-profit US healthcare system published Thursday shows that President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's assault on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act is on track to reverse more than a decade of progress on expanding insurance coverage, fueling a worsening medical debt crisis and forcing millions to delay or forgo treatment.
The Commonwealth Fund's annual status report on the American health insurance system notes that the uninsured rate for working-age US adults rose from 8.9% in 2024 to 11.2% this year, as the Trump-GOP cuts to Medicaid and their refusal to extend enhanced ACA subsidies pushed millions off their coverage. The report emphasizes that the worst is yet to come, given that many of the Medicaid cuts included in the 2025 Trump-GOP budget law—including punitive new work reporting requirements—have not taken effect nationwide.
"The combined effects of these changes are expected to drive the number of uninsured people to 37 million by 2036—about the same as in 2014, when most of the ACA’s changes took effect," the report observes. "At the same time, rapid growth in health costs is making both insurance and care even less affordable—and contributing to medical debt—for Americans across the country."
Looking beyond just the uninsured rate, the Commonwealth Fund report shows that nearly half of working-age adults were "inadequately insured" this year due to a coverage gap or unaffordable plans. Around 30% of US adults reported having medical debt, according to the new report.
"Unlike peer countries, the US does not guarantee adequate health insurance for all its residents," the report states. "Our survey findings show just how detrimental a lack of continuous coverage and high out-of-pocket costs are to people’s ability to afford care and maintain their health—without going into debt."
The report comes as Americans casting their ballots in the November 3 midterm elections identify healthcare as a key issue amid a broader affordability crisis that Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a "hoax" perpetrated by his political opponents.
According to the Commonwealth Fund's survey, 73% of US adults "believe the federal government has a responsibility to ensure all Americans have coverage, including 45% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats, and 76% of independents." That finding is consistent with an earlier poll from the health policy group KFF showing that two-thirds of the American public has a favorable view of Medicare for All.
Trump has publicly and misleadingly attacked Medicare for All while insisting—without providing any specifics—that he intends to pass "a truly great healthcare plan" if the GOP retains control of Congress next month.
Trump has also touted small, one-time healthcare rebate checks that his administration has sent out to some Americans ahead of the midterms. The checks pale in comparison to the healthcare cost increases facing tens of millions of Americans.
Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in response to the Commonwealth Fund report that "Trump and Republicans are taking this country backward."
"Families are facing skyrocketing premiums, mounting medical bills, and going without coverage altogether," said Dach. "They’re being forced to put off seeing a doctor, skip prescriptions, or gamble with their health because they can’t afford care. And it’s only going to get worse as millions more Americans are expected to lose their health insurance as the full force of Republican cuts takes hold."
"This is a damning report on Donald Trump and Republicans’ healthcare agenda, which is making it harder to afford and access care for working families across the country," Dach added. "The only way to fix this is through the choices that Americans make in November.”
The Commonwealth Fund report came as KFF found that American workers now pay around $7,470 per year on average for employer-sponsored family health coverage—an increase of 9% compared to 2025.
“We have been hearing a lot about Affordable Care Act and Medicaid cuts," said KFF president and CEO Drew Altman. "Now add a 9% increase in what workers with employer coverage paid toward family premiums in 2026 to the reasons voters are so concerned about their healthcare costs."
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'Shameful': Trump DOJ Ditches Civil Rights and School Desegregation Cases
Meanwhile, Rep. Jamie Raskin noted, "this administration carries out presidential vendettas, covers up child sex trafficking, promotes corruption, and pardons and coddles violent felons in the president’s private militia."
Oct 22, 2026
A pair of papers published Thursday by the legal group Democracy Forward detail how, under President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice has dumped dozens of cases focused on school desegregation and the civil rights of people of color, all while weaponizing the DOJ to serve "the most dangerous criminal in US history" and his allies.
The cases were previously taken up by the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, currently led by Harmeet Dhillon, whose confirmation was controversial—like those of Trump's first attorney general for this term, Pam Bondi, whom he fired in April and replaced with his former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche.
The new analyses of the cases—"Walking Away: DOJ's Abandonment of Civil Rights Cases for People of Color" and "Filling in The Gaps: Tracking The 50+ School Desegregation Cases DOJ Says It Is Ending"—were developed by Democracy Forward's oversight and accountability project Red Line for Civil Rights.
"People and communities rely on DOJ to pursue vital cases to address threats to civil rights under our nation's laws. The Red Line for Civil Rights reports don't just highlight the cases that have been abandoned, but also make clear the harm that DOJ's abandonment of its mission retreat has caused," said Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman.
The project found at least 36 abandoned cases and probes addressing discrimination against Black, Latino, and Native American people, from Voting Rights Act lawsuits and redlining settlements with banks to firefighter and police hiring issues.
There was United States v. Cobb County, Georgia, in which the DOJ alleged that credit checks and a written exam illegally screened out Black firefighter applicants, and United States v. Patriot Bank, a 2024 consent order over redlining of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee.
In United States v. SouthEast Bank, the department argued that a student loan refinancing product discriminated against Alaska Native, American Indian, and Black applicants, and in United States v. City of Minneapolis, the DOJ concluded that police discriminated against Black and Native American in Minnesotans.
"The shameful withdrawal of DOJ resources from these cases and investigations highlights how this administration is abandoning communities across the country," said Megan Marks, a former leader in the department who is now the project's deputy director and managing editor. "Walking away from them doesn't mean the discrimination has been addressed. It just means DOJ is no longer watching."
In its second analysis, the project identified 56 school districts in 12 states where the department has moved to ditch or end a desegregation case, or did not oppose ending one—from Athens City, Alabama and Chesterfield County, South Carolina to South Bend, Indiana and Waterbury, Connecticut.
Tanisha Milton teaches a lesson on busing and the desegregation of Boston, Massachusetts public schools during an 8th grade civics class at TechBoston Academy on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
"The Supreme Court held in its landmark 1954 case, Brown v. Board of Education, that segregating public school students by race violates the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection," the report notes. "Since Brown, DOJ has monitored and enforced desegregation orders, reviewing evidence and often working collaboratively with school districts and, in some cases, private plaintiffs to support progress."
"This work was central to the Civil Rights Division's history. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorized DOJ to file its own school desegregation lawsuits against public schools or institutions of higher education and to join cases that families had already brought," the paper explains. "These school desegregation cases are how the promise of Brown reaches individual classrooms. Behind each of these cases are children, families, and a community that fought, sometimes at great personal risk, for the right to an equal education."
Shaheena Simons previously oversaw the Justice Department's desegregation docket but is now a senior adviser at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In response to the report, she said that the "DOJ's haste to end these cases without deliberation or transparency is a betrayal of Black students who continue to face segregation and inequality in our schools."
"This retreat is part of a much bigger picture," Simons emphasized. "Not only has the Civil Rights Division abandoned its work to protect the rights of our most marginalized students, but it is also weaponizing civil rights statutes against them."
Democratic leaders in the US House of Representatives also spoke out about the project's findings. Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (Va.) accused the "politicized" department of "turning its back on workers and students by abandoning entire categories of discrimination cases and ending the fight against school desegregation altogether."
Democrats on his panel "are committed to the protection of civil rights and to guaranteeing that all Americans are protected from discrimination in accordance with the civil rights laws that so many Americans fought to secure," pledged Scott, as his party prepares for next month's midterm elections, in which Republicans could lose control of one or both chambers of Congress.
Harmeet Dhillon shakes hands with Republican US President-elect Donald Trump in a photo she posted on social media on October 31, 2024. (Photo: Harmeet Dhillon/X)
Fellow Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin (Md.), a constitutional scholar and ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, said that "Democracy Forward's reports expose the Justice Department's shocking betrayal of its central duty to protect Americans against race discrimination."
"While DOJ devotes its resources to persecuting Trump's political enemies, it has dropped protection of voting rights and is allowing discrimination to proliferate by abandoning school desegregation and job discrimination cases," he said, as the Trump administration pursues everyone from former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey to New York Attorney General Letitia James and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
"We need a Department of Justice that stands by the rule of law and the rights of all Americans," Raskin asserted. "But this administration carries out presidential vendettas, covers up child sex trafficking, promotes corruption, and pardons and coddles violent felons in the president's private militia."
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‘This Is Assault’: Utah Woman Speaks Out After Cop Body Slammed Her at Data Center Protest
“I have a habit of talking at data center meetings. But never have I been met with such excessive force."
Oct 22, 2026
A Utah woman is speaking out after video showed a police officer slamming to the ground as she was protesting against the approval of an artificial intelligence data center.
In a Thursday interview with Fox 13 Salt Lake City, 27-year-old Aspen Azalea demanded the firing of Utah County Sheriff's Deputy Phillip Crawford after he was caught on video throwing her to the ground during a Wednesday night meeting of the Utah County Planning Commission in the city of Provo.
"Bare minimum, Phil Crawford needs to be fired, bare minimum,” Azalea said. “This is assault. He did throw me to the ground."
Video of the incident shows Crawford pulling Azalea out of her seat at the meeting and escorting her out of the main chamber. Shortly after bringing her into the lobby area, he slams her face-first onto the floor.
Utah county residents are demanding accountability after police forcibly removed a woman from a council meeting where officials unanimously approved a controversial data centre rule without public comment. The woman reportedly suffered a concussion and facial injuries. https://t.co/gq0zeLECZU
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 22, 2026
The Utah County Sheriff's Office claimed that Azalea kicked Crawford in the groin just before he slammed her to the ground, which Azalea denied.
“No, I never kicked him,” she told Fox 13 Salt Lake City. “I absolutely didn’t kick him."
The woman also noted that, had the deputy thrown her to the ground just a few feet further, she could have hit her head on a nearby bench.
“What really scares me about that situation is that he could have killed me because there was a bench,” she said. “If he threw me into that bench, I don't think I'd be here today."
In a separate interview published Thursday by The Salt Lake Tribune, Azalea said that she suffered a concussion, as well as bruises on her jaw, knee, and shoulder.
Azalea acknowledged to The Salt Lake Tribune that she shouted during the Wednesday meeting, as she has shouted at other meetings to protest the development of data centers.
“I have a habit of talking at data center meetings,” she told the newspaper. “But never have I been met with such excessive force.”
Azalea faces misdemeanor charges of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, and disrupting a meeting.
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'Where Is Our Humanity?': Anger After ICE Tried to Arrest Father Who Held Crying Toddlers
"Trump and ICE are traumatizing our children, ripping apart families, and terrorizing our communities," said Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. "The cruelty is the point."
Oct 22, 2026
Anger mounted Thursday following the publication of video footage showing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to arrest a father carrying his two distraught toddlers while on his way to work in Providence, Rhode Island.
The man, whose middle name is Sebastian—he did not want to disclose his full name—is originally from Guatemala. He told The Boston Globe that he was taking his children to their babysitter before heading off to work in construction.
The video, recorded by a bystander, shows three ICE agents, two of them masked, on a residential street, trying to arrest Sebastian as he holds a crying child in each arm.
The ICE agents repeatedly ordered the woman recording the interaction to stand back, eventually threatening to pepper spray her if she didn't stay at least 25 feet away from them.
The agents were apparently uncertain how to proceed.
“This gentleman has two kids,” one of them said into a handheld radio while holding on to Sebastian's arm. “You wanna keep him or let him go?”
They decided to let him go, but told him to report to ICE on Wednesday or risk the arrest of his whole family.
According to the Globe, Sebastian has no criminal record in Rhode Island.
US Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) was among the Democratic officials who condemned the arrest attempt and President Donald Trump's wider deadly immigration crackdown.
"No Rhode Islander can watch this video of a man trying to keep his children safe and think the actions of these federal agents are acceptable," he said on social media. "Surely we can acknowledge that traumatizing toddlers on the streets of Providence is a betrayal of our values as Americans."
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) asked: "Where is our humanity? How is this keeping anyone safe?"
"Trump and ICE are traumatizing our children, ripping apart families, and terrorizing our communities," she added. "The cruelty is the point."
The encounter left Sebastian's family fearing for their future. His wife, Petronila, told the Globe that she's afraid that if they leave home, they may never return.
“Are they going to detain us, take us away?” she asked. “What is going to happen, what are we going to do?”
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Finnish Petition Demands Data Center Regulation After Google Felled 250,000 Trees to Make Way for AI Project
“It has been done in the wrong way," said one resident of the Finnish town of Muhos. "American style. No sense. No sense at all."
Oct 22, 2026
A petition calling for more regulation of data centers in Finland has gathered more than 96,400 signatures—nearly twice the amount needed to force the Finnish Parliament to formally take up the petition for a debate—after Google infuriated residents and officials of two towns where the tech giant illegally chopped down an estimated 250,000 trees across 815 acres of forest after purchasing the land area.
The company felled the trees and stripped the entire area of its top soil without conducting a legally required environmental impact assessment, prompting the Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority (LVV) to order Google to suspend all "measures that significantly change the environment."
The company was given a deadline of October 23 to halt the work in the rural towns of Muhos and Otanmäki, and LVV said it would consider enforcement proceedings and fines if Google does not comply.
Google's Finland country manager, Antti Järvinen, said last week that the company had acted “on the best understanding we had of the legislation at the time" as it cleared the land for its €13 billion ($14.5 billion) artificial intelligence infrastructure projects.
With 145 new data centers planned in Finland, where vast swaths of uninhabited land and the cool climate have attracted AI companies looking to rapidly build out the massive facilities, the petition proposed by citizens calls on Parliament to draft legislation that would ensure data centers are subject to "conditions and restrictions [in] connection to the electricity network."
The legislation must take "into account the capacity of the electricity network, mandatory reserve power, and the utilization of waste heat," reads the petition. "The aim of the legislative drafting is to ensure the adequacy and affordability of electricity for households and other industries."
Citizens are also calling for a "data center fee" to be imposed, "the basis for which must correspond to the environmental damage caused by the operation and the resources used (e.g. electricity, water, land use) to act as a system that compensates for these disadvantages."
Across the US and in other countries, the rapid AI data center build-out pushed by President Donald Trump, tech CEOs, and other leaders has prompted outcry in numerous communities, where residents have led grassroots efforts to block the construction of the centers.
Public approval for data centers has plummeted as residents have raised concerns about the facilities hiking household energy bills, guzzling water supplies, and providing few, if any, long-term jobs.
But Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo of the conservative National Coalition Party has called attracting investment from AI firms a "top priority" for the Nordic country and has promised that Google's development will “deliver lasting benefits for both parties."
Speaking to The Guardian Thursday, Jussi Kangasharju, a computer science expert at the University of Helsinki, was skeptical of those claims.
“Really, for Finland, there are no benefits,” he told the outlet. “They are international companies serving international customers. Very little corporate taxes go to Finland. Data centers ultimately have very little benefit for others except the data center operator.”
Hanna Halmeenpää, chair of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (SLL), expressed disbelief over Google's destruction of the country's prized forests.
“I have never heard that any company has done anything like this in Finland," Halmeenpää told The Guardian Thursday. “They bought the vast land area, and they just started to cut it, just like that... It’s pure arrogance."
Another SLL official, Vesa Hyyryläinen, told the newspaper that wildlife in the forest that used to surround Otanmäki, including nesting woodpeckers, had been pushed out, while a resident whose family has lived in the town for generations explained how Google may have endangered locals by cutting down the biodiverse forest.
“We had wolves coming into the village because all the wild animals moved out of the forest,” Anni Ranta told The Guardian.
Conservationists were unimpressed Thursday with Google's pledge to plant trees across 130 hectares in the Muhos area and to work to protect water quality in the town following the destruction of the forest.
“It has been done in the wrong way," Muhos resident Aantti Jakonen told The Guardian. "American style. No sense. No sense at all."
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Under Assault From Trump, Embattled ICC Wins Top Human Rights Prize in Europe
Yannis Maniatis, whose bloc nominated the court to receive the award, said it was meant to demonstrate "that no one is above the law."
Oct 22, 2026
The European Union on Thursday awarded its most prestigious human rights prize to the International Criminal Court and its officials in a rebuke to President Donald Trump’s efforts to destroy the institution.
The EU’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought—previously awarded to figures such as Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai—follows another international honor this month for a former ICC judge. Earlier in October, Navi Pillay, a former judge for the war crimes court, received the Nobel Peace Prize.
“The European Union is built on respect for multilateralism and international institutions," said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola as she announced the award on Thursday. “With the award of the Sakharov Prize to the International Criminal Court and its officials, the European Parliament recognizes the court’s important work in upholding international law and justice.”
Welcoming the award, which will be presented in December, ICC president Tomoko Akane noted that it “comes at a time when the court and its officials face unprecedented challenges.” She added, “There is no peace without justice and no security without law.”
In retaliation for the ICC’s 2024 arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration has declared war on the court, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the goal was to “dismantle” it.
The US and Israel have not ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC in 2002, and they claim that the court therefore has no power to hold their citizens accountable for war crimes. Supporters of the body argue that it has jurisdiction over crimes committed by Americans or Israelis in member states, such as Afghanistan and Palestine.
At last month's United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Trump raged against the court as an "evil group of people" and declared that he would "never allow US service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us." During the same speech, he threatened to "annihilate" Iran and bragged about seizing Venezuela's oil as "spoils" of war.
After sanctioning individual judges, UN experts, and human rights organizations that provided evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the Trump administration earlier this month sanctioned the court as a whole—threatening to cut it off from financial services and technology it needs to function. Human rights organizations have decried the sanctions as a fundamental assault on international law itself and a declaration of impunity by the United States.
Yannis Maniatis, a Greek lawmaker and vice president for foreign affairs of the European Parliament’s Socialists and Democrats bloc, which nominated the ICC for the prize, said the honor was meant to reinforce the idea “that no one is above the law.”
“We stand by the ICC and its officials, and we are committed to safeguarding its work," he said Monday. "We must guarantee that the ICC is able to operate independently, free from pressure or external interference."
"The court ensures that victims around the world have access to justice," he added. "It is a people-based organization, not a political one. If the aggressors become the victims, and if we stand by helplessly as international justice erodes, we risk allowing those who believe themselves above the law to prevail."
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, likewise welcomed the award.
"For victims of the world's gravest crimes, justice means a voice," she said. “The [ICC] must be free to pursue its mission independently and without pressure or intimidation.”
Some European lawmakers have warned that expressions of solidarity with the ICC will mean little unless the EU takes decisive action to shield the court from US sanctions.
Earlier this month, the chairs of five European Parliament bodies said that "targeting the court as an institution crosses a fundamental red line, one that threatens the independence and integrity of a tribunal established to uphold accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community."
"The European Union must now demonstrate unwavering solidarity with the ICC and its personnel—not only with words but also with concrete acts," they said. "The European Commission must immediately trigger the EU Blocking Statute, shielding the court and European actors from the extraterritorial reach of these sanctions. Europe must stand firm in defense of international law and the rule of law.”
On Monday, European Commission spokesperson Siobhan McGarry confirmed that the measure remained under consideration but announced no decision or timeline for activating it.
The Left, a coalition of socialist and other left-wing parties in the European Parliament, said awarding the Sakharov Prize to the ICC sent a “strong signal to the European Commission to immediately invoke the Blocking Statute and protect international justice from US sanctions and intimidation.”
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