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For Immediate Release
February, 14 2023, 02:10pm EDT
Contact:
Dylan Gyauch-Lewis, gyauchlewis@therevolvingdoorproject.org
Secretary Buttigieg Must Overhaul Rail Safety Regulations, Reinstate Upgraded Brake Requirements For Freight Trains
In response to the ongoing resolution of a serious derailment in East Palestine, OH, Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser issued the following statement:
"The Obama administration attempted to prevent dangerous derailments like the one in East Palestine by mandating better brake systems on freight trains. But this effort was watered down thanks to corporate pressure, first by writing in many exemptions to the proposed rules and then, under Trump, by repealing the requirement altogether."
"Reporting from The Lever indicates that Secretary Pete Buttigieg has no intention of reinstating or strengthening the brake rule rescinded under Trump. Additionally, The Lever reports that the train was not being regulated as a high-hazard flammable train, despite it clearly being both high-hazard and flammable. These types of failures to protect the public are invited by perpetual lax enforcement and laziness toward even getting back to the too-low regulatory standards under Obama."
"Now, all eyes are on Secretary Buttigieg. For too long he has been content to continue the legacy of his deregulatory predecessor, Elaine Chao, rather than immediately moving to reverse her legacy upon becoming Secretary. Norfolk Southern's environmental disaster is the latest in a long string of corporate malfeasance committed right under the Secretary's nose. As I've warned before, corporations do not respect Buttigieg as a regulator.
"Chao justified letting trains run without proper brakes because the safety requirement failed a so-called cost-benefit analysis. As we've covered before, this type of analysis is invariably weighted against fully accounting for the health and environmental benefits a regulation provides. Secretary Buttigieg should call out the brake rule repeal for the horrendous decision it was, start working to implement a new rule, take Norfolk-Southern to task, and push back on corporations deciding how the DOT regulates them. Anything short of that only signals to the railroads that this type of incident will be tolerated. That is not an acceptable message from the Secretary of Transportation."
The Revolving Door Project (RDP) scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement.
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‘Pretti’s Death Will Not Be in Vain’: Nurses Plan Nationwide Week of Action Against ICE Terror
"ICE messed with the wrong profession. We nurses will fight to abolish ICE and bring about a vision for a healthy society based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community."
Jan 27, 2026
The largest union of nurses in the United States is holding protests across the country this week to protest the killing of one of their own, Alex Pretti, by federal officers in Minneapolis and to demand the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose agents are terrorizing communities nationwide.
Demonstrations organized by National Nurses United (NNU) have been planned in more than a dozen states—from California to Florida to New York—as grassroots backlash against the Trump administration's lawless mass deportation efforts, detentions, and violent crackdowns on dissent continue to mount.
"Pretti's death will not be in vain. ICE messed with the wrong profession," NNU said in a statement. "We nurses will fight to abolish ICE and bring about a vision for a healthy society based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community."
NNU, which represents more than 225,000 nurses in the US, said in the hours after Pretti's killing that federal agents "have executed one of our fellow nurses, Alex Pretti, who saved veterans’ lives as an intensive care unit RN for the Veterans Health Administration."
"He not only advocated for his patients inside the VA as a member of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), but also took his advocacy to the streets to stand up for his community as nurses do," the union said. "We demand justice and accountability for his murder."
While demanding ICE's elimination as a federal agency, the nurses' union is also pushing senators to oppose any government funding legislation that includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE.
"Call your senators and tell them to oppose any appropriations package that includes the Homeland Security Appropriations bill," NNU wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. "Congress must not give a penny to ICE. Our taxpayer dollars must not be used to murder and terrorize our communities!"
URGENT: Call your senators and tell them to oppose any appropriations package that includes the Homeland Security Appropriations bill.
Congress must not give a penny to ICE. Our taxpayer dollars must not be used to murder and terrorize our communities!
☎️ 202-998-6094 ☎️ pic.twitter.com/h3i7iMvZPD
— National Nurses United (@NationalNurses) January 27, 2026
Ahead of a possible government shutdown at the end of the week, the US Senate is set to consider a legislative package that includes six appropriations bills, including a $64.4 billion DHS funding bill that contains $10 billion for ICE. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said Democrats won't provide the votes Republicans need to advance the appropriations package if the DHS bill is included.
Members of the Senate Democratic caucus are demanding that the DHS funding be stripped from the broader appropriations package and considered on its own, along with concrete reforms to ICE.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a close ally of union nurses, put forward a series of demands on Monday, including repeal of the $75 billion ICE funding that Republicans and President Donald Trump approved last summer, unmasking of ICE agents, and immediate removal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota and Maine.
"ICE is out of control, ignoring the law and our Constitution,” said Sanders. “Congress must vote NO on any additional funding for DHS."
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Minnesota’s chief federal judge has ordered a top Trump administration immigration enforcement official to appear in person by the end of the week or else potentially be held in contempt of court.
In an order published on Monday, US District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons personally appear in his courtroom on Friday to "show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court."
Schiltz acknowledged that ordering the acting head of a federal agency to appear in person was an "extraordinary step," which he said was justified by "the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders."
As an example, Schlitz pointed to ICE's failure to comply with a January 14 order to grant a detained immigrant a bond hearing within a week or release him from custody. More than a week after this order was issued, Schiltz wrote, the immigrant's counsel informed the court that their client is still being detained despite not being granted a hearing.
"This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks," Schlitz explained.
Schlitz then cited repeated past assertions from ICE attorneys that the agency recognizes it must comply with court orders, insisting that they have "taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward."
"Unfortunately, though, the violations continue," Schlitz wrote. "The court's patience is at an end."
As noted in a Tuesday report from the Washington Post, several recent rulings in immigration cases have "expressed frustration over the government’s tactics and posture in court," including Schlitz recently sending "an exasperated letter to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, questioning unusual moves by government officials to charge demonstrators involved in a church protest in St. Paul."
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"This is the result of deliberate policy, pursued with full knowledge of its effects. This is not war. It is genocide."
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An analysis of Gaza's civil registry by Al Jazeera detailed Monday how thousands of US-backed Israeli military's attacks on the exclave become stories not only of individual casualties but of "lineage, heritage, and identity disappearing in an instant"—with 2,700 families entirely wiped out since October 2023.
In 6,000 families, Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City, just "a single sole survivor" has been left behind.
Mahmoud reported on an attack that killed a recent high school graduate, whose family had lived in Khan Younis for generations, as well as his father, sister, and 22 members of his extended family.
"Sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins—so many branches gone," said Mahmoud.
Ismail Al-Thwabta of the Gaza Government Media Office told Al Jazeera that the erasure of more than 2,700 families accounts for more than 8,000 deaths. More than 71,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began attacking the exclave in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, and hundreds have been killed since this past October when a "ceasefire" agreement was reached.
"Forty thousand families were targeted, which means more than four deaths in each family," Al-Thwabta told Al Jazeera.
Lebanese commentator Sarah Abdallah said the death toll of entire families exemplifies "the intent of genocide."
"This is not war," said Abdallah. "This is annihilation."
Irish Palestinian rights advocate Daniel Lambert of the Bohemian Football Club emphasized that thousands of families have been wiped out or left with just one surviving member with the enablement of the European Union, UK, and US.
Al Jazeera's report came days after Trump administration officials unveiled a "master plan" for a "New Gaza"—one including luxury apartments, data centers, and a "New Rafah" built over the rubble of the southern city that was razed by the Israel Defense Forces last year, forcing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh also explained on Al Jazeera Monday how the thousands of babies born in Gaza since October 2023 have not been added to the Population Registry, which is controlled by Israel.
.@nour_odeh explains that if Israel opens the Rafah crossing to allow Palestinians to leave, the risk is they won't be allowed to return. Nour also points out that babies born in Gaza since 2023 haven't been registered so Israel doesn't recognise them & this has consequences too. pic.twitter.com/WPaWuiW8fF
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 26, 2026
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