August, 31 2026, 04:16pm EDT
Trump’s Drug Pricing Deals Are a Farce
President Donald Trump is expected to announce more most-favored nation (MFN) drug pricing deals with additional pharmaceutical companies today. Public Citizen plans to immediately file a Freedom of Information request to obtain the texts of the newly claimed White House deals. Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“It has been nearly a year since Trump announced his first secret MFN deal with Pfizer, and he has almost nothing to show for it. The new deals are a distraction from the administration’s failed plan to lower U.S. drug prices to the levels paid in other wealthy countries. A more serious approach would build international reference pricing into Medicare drug price negotiation. Instead, Trump is cozying up to Big Pharma and keeping American drug prices high.
“There still is no evidence that any pharma company has followed through on prior commitments to the Trump administration to launch new drugs at MFN-price points. Uptake of TrumpRx, which may cause consumers to overpay on medicines, has been lackluster. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not announced any state participants in a pilot to test MFN-based prices in Medicaid. And CMS has failed to issue final rules to test MFN-pricing in Medicare, while simultaneously excluding almost all drug companies from these programs.”
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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As Ocean Temperatures Rise, Coral Reefs Face Closing Window for Recovery From Climate Damage
Persistent marine heatwaves are causing a "staircase of decline that becomes harder to reverse with every bleaching event," said one scientist.
Aug 31, 2026
The destruction of coral reef cover, cataloged in the largest global assessment of the reefs ever completed, was distressing to scientists, with the world's reefs declining by nearly 10% between 2020-24, compared with 1980-2009.
The authors of the report released Monday by Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), however, emphasized that coral bleaching events driven by ocean heating was not the most worrisome finding of the analysis—but rather, the fact oceans have become so warm that stressed reefs have less and less time to recover.
Historically, coral bleaching events—in which changes in conditions such as ocean temperatures and pollution cause coral to expel its symbiotic algae and become completely white and more vulnerable to mortality—have taken place about once in a decade, giving the reefs years to recover.
Now, the reefs are “lucky to get five or six years,” as water temperatures are remaining high and making it more difficult to regain hard coral cover, explained Manuel González Rivero of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the lead author of the report, titled “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025.”
“After decades of studying coral reefs, what concerns me most isn’t the current loss of hard coral cover; it’s that we’re steadily eroding the conditions they need to recover,” said González Rivero. “Climate change is driving more frequent and severe marine heatwaves, but local pressures such as poor water quality, overfishing, and coastal development are making reefs even less able to withstand them."
The study compiled 21.1 million observations from 36,886 reef sites across 124 countries and territories, drawing on more than 40 years of data from across the globe.
But scientists cautioned that because the research did not include the most recent and intense global bleaching event, which lasted from 2023-25, it may not provide a full picture of the danger coral reefs are in—as well as the coastal communities they help protect and the thousands of marine species they serve as a habitat for.
Carlos Duarte, a marine scientist at the Coral Research and Development Accelerator Platform, told The New York Times that this year's El Niño warming trend is likely to cause another global bleaching event next year, which reefs will likely struggle to recover from as ocean temperatures have been recorded as getting hotter and hotter in recent years.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that the Earth will lose 70-90% of its coral reef cover if the planet gets 1.5°C hotter than its preindustrial level.
"For many reefs affected by the unprecedented marine heatwaves in 2024, this year’s El Niño likely means they’ll have had little more than a year to begin recovering before being hit again," said González Rivero. "This is creating a staircase of decline that becomes harder to reverse with every bleaching event.“
The report emphasizes that reefs have maintained their ability to regain hard coral cover "when disturbances are reduced and sufficient recovery time is available," such as after the third major global coral bleaching event since 1998, which took place from 2016-17 and saw a 6.6% decline in coral.
After the event, scientists observed a "relative increase of approximately 6% between 2017 and 2019," said the GCRMN.
"That recovery matters because the benefits coral reefs provide extend far beyond the reef itself. Coral reefs cover less than 0.2% of the ocean floor," said the organization. "Yet, they support at least 25% of all marine species and underpin food security, livelihoods, coastal protection, tourism, and cultural heritage of close to one billion people worldwide."
Scientists including Terry Hughes, a former director of coral reef studies at James Cook University in Australia, who was not involved in the analysis, emphasized that reducing planet-heating emissions is the top solution to the crisis of coral reef recovery, as the pollution from fossil fuel extraction is linked to increasingly hot oceans.
Allowing coral reefs to recover from bleaching events "really depends on how much more greenhouse gases go into the atmosphere and the amount of warming that causes," Hughes told the Times, while local solutions including reducing water pollution are also crucial for maintaining reef health.
David Obura, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, expressed hope that the report will "shake us out of our persistent inertia."
The long-term monitoring by GCRMN, said Obura, "tracks not just the pulse of coral reefs, but of our planet too. It shows which regions are under the greatest pressure, that actions to date have not been sufficient, and warns where reefs will be under increasing threat in years to come."
"We must act now to halt this decline and invest in solutions that reduce pressures and build resilience, while sustaining the monitoring that turns good intentions into effective policy," he said. "The 40 years of data in this report provide a strident warning that delayed action risks locking in irreversible losses—not just to reefs, but also to the economies and people that depend on them.”
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Trump Hammered Over Iran War That Drove Gas Prices Above $4 Per Gallon Every Day in August for First Time Ever
"Donald Trump started a deadly and costly war with Iran that has driven gas prices through the roof, and Americans are breaking the bank to fill up at the pump."
Aug 31, 2026
President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran has achieved a significant milestone, but it's not one that many US voters will likely appreciate.
Data published by the American Automobile Association (AAA) on Monday show that the average price for gas in the US now stands at $4.08 per gallon, or $0.90 per gallon more than the average price one year ago.
Gas prices typically decline throughout summer months, but the spike in oil prices caused by the Iran War has kept prices elevated in August beyond anything seen in prior years.
"For the first time ever, the national average in August has been above $4 per gallon every day," explained AAA. "This month is poised to set a new record as the most expensive August at the pump, surpassing the previous August record set in 2022."
Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee, slammed Trump in a Monday statement where she accused the president of making policy to benefit his fossil fuel industry donors while leaving working-class Americans holding the bag.
"Donald Trump started a deadly and costly war with Iran that has driven gas prices through the roof, and Americans are breaking the bank to fill up at the pump," said Witmer. "Meanwhile, Trump and Big Oil executives who donated to his campaign are profiting off his war, cashing in at the expense of hardworking Americans. In Trump’s world, the rich and powerful come first, while everyday Americans get left in the dust."
High gas prices have become a major political headache for Trump, as a recent analysis estimated that Americans have paid $71.5 billion more to fill up their cars thanks to the president's war.
Meanwhile, a mandated ethics filing released last week shows Trump made more than 1,000 stock transactions in June, including thousands of dollars invested in energy companies profiting off of his war.
CNBC reported on Monday that the president is scheduled to meet with US refiners and fuel distributors as part of an effort to lower gas prices ahead of the midterm elections in November.
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Dems Call for Cancellation of $17 Million Contract to Equip ICE Agents With Electric Shock Gloves
"Introducing low-visibility electric shock weapons into our immigration enforcement system is an unacceptable escalation."
Aug 31, 2026
A group of House Democrats on Monday demanded the immediate cancellation of a nearly $17 million federal contract to provide electric shock gloves to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who have been unleashed on American cities under the second Trump administration and enabled to commit horrific—and, in some cases, deadly—abuses against undocumented immigrants and American citizens.
The Democratic lawmakers, led by Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois, expressed "profound alarm" over the contract in a new letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose agency oversees ICE. The letter's 50 signatories wrote that the devices, known as Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters (GLOVE), are "designed to inflict severe pain without leaving physical evidence or visible optics," making them "a uniquely dangerous tool for unaccountable abuse."
"We demand the immediate cancellation of this contract and a total ban on the deployment of these abusive devices across all immigration enforcement and detention operations," the lawmakers continued. "The rollout of these weapons to thousands of field agents across ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations contributes to a DHS environment already under widespread scrutiny for state-sanctioned abuse, torture, and arbitrary cruelty."
The Democrats sent their letter days after ICE granted a $16.7 million no-bid contract to the Kentucky-based firm Compliant Technologies for 6,000 pairs of electric shock gloves, ignoring the protests of lawmakers and human rights groups.
The ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) are among the advocacy organizations that have decried ICE plans to equip its agents with the gloves. CVT has described the devices as "inherently abusive equipment that facilitates torture."
In their Monday letter, the group of House Democrats warned that the "dangers of these 'less-lethal' weapons are not theoretical," pointing to the case of a 43-year-old man in Kentucky who died after corrections officers shocked him dozens of times with electric gloves.
More than 50 people have died in ICE custody during President Donald Trump's second term.
"This administration continues to outfit ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] with the tools of an occupying paramilitary force—despite widespread human rights violations carried out by its agents during immigration enforcement actions," the lawmakers wrote. "Introducing low-visibility electric shock weapons into our immigration enforcement system is an unacceptable escalation that prioritizes physical intimidation and unaccountable force over human safety and administrative accountability.
On top of calling for cancellation of the contract, the House Democrats demanded information on any threat assessments ICE conducted before awarding the contract, whether the agency has trained its officers with electric shock gloves, and whether DHS intends to implement any productions to "prevent officers from using them for punitive measures, retaliation, or against non-threatening individuals."
"We reiterate our demand that you immediately halt the acquisition and deployment of electric shock gloves, cancel the contract, and refocus the Department’s resources on accountability and humanitarian standards rather than expanding a paramilitary apparatus," the lawmakers wrote.
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‘Unconscionable, Immoral, and Illegal’: Lawsuit Targets Trump Approval of Cancer-Causing Forever Chemical
“While everyone’s distracted by the Trump administration’s erratic actions on the world stage, it keeps approving dangerous forever pesticides right here on our own soil."
Aug 31, 2026
Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration, alleging the Environmental Protection Agency approved a potentially cancer-causing "forever chemical" for use as an herbicide without fully assessing the risk.
The petition was filed Friday in the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America, who asked the court to throw out the EPA's June 30 approval of trifludimoxazin and six products containing it for use on a wide range of crops including corn, wheat, soybeans, and apples.
Trifludimoxazin is part of the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, synthetic chemicals with strong carbon-fluorine bonds that can take years to fully break down, earning them the nickname "forever chemicals."
The trifludimoxazin was initially approved in 2021 during the Biden administration. But the company agreed to stop selling the product the following year after environmental groups sued, citing its potential to cause cancer and harm to threatened and endangered fish. But the Trump EPA last year proposed registering it again for widespread use and issued a final approval in June.
The groups argue that the EPA approved the use of trifludimoxazin without accounting for evidence that the pesticide could cause cancer and harm wildlife and ecosystems.
The EPA itself has acknowledged that the chemical could harm many endangered and threatened species, including posing chronic risks to bees and other invertebrates. Meanwhile, rodent studies have found that at high doses, the chemical can cause thyroid tumors and adverse effects on the liver and reproductive systems.
The chemical, which blocks an enzyme in plants needed for growth, has been described as 10 times as potent as dicamba, another weedkiller used on soybeans and cotton, whose products have caused millions of acres of unintended crop damage since its approval in 2017.
But though the EPA's own guidance states that carcinogenic effects in animals could point to human risk, the agency stated that its final risk assessment found “no human health risks of concern."
The plaintiffs argue that the EPA did not take all the proper steps to reach this conclusion, having failed to quantify the chemical's danger, especially when combined with exposure to other approved chemicals.
“Trifludimoxazin is a likely human carcinogen that belongs to a family of weedkillers that also causes reproductive harm, birth defects, and neurological deficits in animal studies,” said Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety. “As if the health threats weren’t enough, this incredibly potent herbicide can drift to stunt crops and wild plants hundreds of yards from a sprayed field, while runoff threatens wetland plants. Potent biocides like this have no business on the American landscape.”
The lawsuit also notes that two of the approved trifludimoxazin products combine it with another toxic herbicide called saflufenacil, meaning that farmworkers who apply the chemicals could be exposed to the effects of both at once. The plaintiffs said the EPA did not evaluate the risk that would be posed to farmworkers who are exposed to these chemicals.
“While everyone’s distracted by the Trump administration’s erratic actions on the world stage, it keeps approving dangerous forever pesticides right here on our own soil,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s unconscionable, immoral, and illegal. Our kids and grandkids deserve better than to be saddled with pollution that never goes away.”
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Out-of-Touch Trump Says Communities That Reject AI Data Centers Will Be 'Backwards and Poor'
"Donald Trump is actively trying to help as many Democratic senators as possible get elected," said one polling expert.
Aug 31, 2026
President Donald Trump on Monday warned Americans that they risk becoming "backwards and poor" unless they allow Big Tech companies to build artificial intelligence data centers in their communities.
In a social media post, the president expressed indignation that any town or city wouldn't welcome data centers, which have drawn nationwide opposition for generating pollution and jacking up utility bills.
"The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor," Trump wrote. "If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign."
In reality, AI data centers create very few jobs once they are completed, as most of their functions are fully automated.
Trump then said that Americans "will only have yourselves to blame" if they "kill the Golden Goose" that is AI data centers.
"China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement," Trump wrote. "Actually, they can't believe it is happening!"
Building AI data centers has become massively unpopular throughout the US.
A poll conducted by Embold Research and published by Heatmap Pro earlier this month shows that 75% of Americans now oppose building AI data centers in their area, including 61% registering strong opposition.
While Republicans polled in the survey were more supportive of data centers than Democrats and independent voters, it nonetheless found that opposition among Republicans outweighed support by 43 points.
Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris marveled at how politically tone deaf the president sounds when it comes to data centers, commenting that "Donald Trump is actively trying to help as many Democratic senators as possible get elected."
Longtime GOP operative Frank Luntz similarly noted data centers' unpopularity, citing a recent Gallup poll showing 63% of Republican voters oppose having one of the facilities built in their communities.
"We’re about to see whether President Trump can sway those voters to support them, as he’s done on many issues before," Luntz remarked.
Democratic US Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed wasted no time tying the president's position on data centers to his opponent, Republican Mike Rogers.
"Make no mistake—this is Mike Rogers' position on data centers," wrote El-Sayed. "He's got up to $2.6 million invested in companies cashing in on the data center boom, all while Michiganders watch their utility bills soar. You can't trust a word out of Mike's mouth because he's only out for himself, for Donald Trump, and for Big Tech—not Michigan."
Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), observed that Trump is merely "sharing the perspective of Wall Street and Big Tech" and is showing "no interest... in grappling with the mass revolt across American communities, or to learn anything from them."
Screenwriter David Simon, creator of the acclaimed television series The Wire, accused Trump of brazenly lying about data centers' economic benefits.
"If data centers are a geographic benefit to communities, you can be sure they'd be siting and building them in affluent and politically connected environs," wrote Simon. "Curiously, they're dumped in poorer, less influential places. Go fucking figure."
Republican Kentucky state Rep. Savannah Maddox took issue with the president disparaging communities opposed to data centers, which include many of the rural communities that voted for him in three presidential elections.
"Rural doesn’t mean 'backwards and poor' and development doesn’t always equate to being 'successful and rich,'" wrote Maddox. "President Trump wouldn't be president without the rural voters who inhabit America’s heartland. It is not wrong of us to question the sudden and wide-scale effort to convert arable land into data centers. We are not stupid for wanting to protect our rural way of life."
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As Trump Resumes Boat Strikes, Amnesty Says 'Congress Must Stop Murderous Yearlong Campaign'
"We look forward to the day when the architects and perpetrators of this campaign of extrajudicial killings are investigated and face justice, including the people who ordered these operations."
Aug 31, 2026
In anticipation of Wednesday, which will mark one year since the Trump administration launched its recently revived bombing campaign against boats allegedly trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, Amnesty International USA on Monday renewed its call for congressional action.
"For one year, the US military has carried out a campaign of extrajudicial killings at sea that has left more than 225 people dead, with the most recent four deaths just six days ago," said Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director for government relations, in a statement. "For just as long, we have called on Congress to take meaningful action to stop these killings, which are illegal under both international and US law."
Both chambers of Congress are narrowly controlled by Republicans, who have refused to advance war powers resolutions intended to stop the strikes. The US military has confirmed 68 bombings, with at least 227 deaths and 3 survivors, including two attacks last week—though there have been at least three other suspicious attacks on Ecuadorian fishing boats.
All of the attacks have been denounced by legal experts worldwide as "war crimes, murder, or both." While the Trump administration has tried to justify the deadly campaign by claiming that the United States is in an armed conflict with drug-smuggling cartels, many experts and members of Congress disagree.
"War crimes are violations of the law of armed conflict that take place in armed conflict," Sarah Elaine Harrison, nonresident fellow in the Stimson Center's Conventional Defense Program, wrote for Lawfare last week. "By contrast, all of these boat strikes conducted by the US military... are extrajudicial killings. That is, they are deliberate killings that are outside the law: That means murder under domestic criminal statutes, and now likely crimes against humanity under international law."
Amnesty's Klasing similarly noted Monday that "US authorities have yet to offer a shred of evidence to support their claims against the people they have killed. They have not even named the dead. But even if the victims were transiting narcotics as the administration alleges, international law absolutely prohibits summary killings of criminal suspects."
"Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions, lawmakers have done little to try to halt this horrific campaign of murder at sea," she continued. "And let us be clear: Extrajudicial killings are a form of murder. How many more people will die at sea from this administration’s illegal actions before Congress does its job?"
Klasing said that "we look forward to the day when the architects and perpetrators of this campaign of extrajudicial killings are investigated and face justice, including the people who ordered these operations: President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth."
"Until then, we will continue pushing Congress to do its job to stop this ongoing policy of murder, and we urge people to call their representatives and do the same," she stressed. "But the blame does not solely rest on US authorities."
Amid the boat bombings overseen by US Southern Command, Trump in March sent American troops to Ecuador for a joint effort to combat "narco-terrorists" in the South American nation. Earlier this month, SOUTHCOM announced an expanded operation dubbed Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, with an aim to "defeat all threats" across Latin America.
Klasing declared Monday that "any authorities in Latin America who have aided these killings with equipment or intelligence must stop collaborating in this illegal airstrike campaign and likewise face justice."
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Health Aid Cuts in Secret Trump Deals Will Inflict 'Preventable' Death, Disease on Global South: Report
"It will be patients who will pay the ultimate price," said one global health advocate.
Aug 31, 2026
The US Congress has pushed back against President Donald Trump's efforts to slash foreign aid, which has long been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike—but a new report on more than a dozen Memoranda of Understanding that the White House has reached with countries that have long relied heavily on healthcare assistance shows that the administration is underspending "congressionally appropriated global health funds by potentially billions of dollars," as it pushes its "America First Global Health Strategy."
That's according to Public Citizen, which on Sunday joined Partners In Health in releasing an analysis of documents that the two nonprofits obtained after suing the Trump administration and filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The groups reviewed the MOUs that have been signed for 18 out of 34 countries whose agreements have been negotiated by the US State Department, including Rwanda, Liberia, Burundi, and Madagascar.
Although Congress has voted to keep foreign aid levels relatively constant—rejecting a budget that called to slash global health spending by $6.2 billion before approving one that proposed a $615 million decrease in spending—the report finds that the MOUs cut foreign health aid by about $2 billion by 2030, compared to 2024 levels.
“These documents suggest that the Trump administration is on course to underspend on global health by billions of dollars compared to what Congress has ordered, risking lives and allowing diseases to spread,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines program at Public Citizen. “The administration must answer how and when it intends to invest the missing billions for health.”
Overall, funding for programs that aim to prevent the spread of diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and Ebola—which is currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo's fastest-spreading outbreak on record—is set to be reduced by 59% from historical spending, according to the MOUs viewed by Public Citizen and Partners in Health.
Some countries would see their health assistance from the US plummet even more, with Rwanda's MOU stipulating a 97% reduction in US health aid. Liberia is set to receive 84% less funding for health initiatives by 2030, and Burundi is set to lose 78% of its aid.
"Partners In Health provides direct care in Rwanda, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, along with seven other countries, and expects under-spending of these funds to impact patients’ access to care," said Public Citizen.
The MOUs also demand that the countries meet strict co-financing requirements to make up for their lost funding, and governments in poor countries across Africa could face penalties "which could worsen funding cuts" if they miss the co-financing targets.
"The planned decreases in US funding are larger for several countries than the funding increases from partner governments," reads the report. "For more than half of countries (11 out of 18), co-financing commitments fall short of the US government’s cuts over five years compared to baseline US government funding."
Countries are likely to struggle to meet the co-financing requirements in the MOUs, warned Public Citizen and Partners In Health.
Malawi would be required to secure new healthcare funding equal to 56% of the country's total health expenditure, the report found. With Uganda also facing co-financing requirements from international health organizations including the Global Fund and Gavi, the East African country would be required to mobilize funds equal to 44% of its total health budget.
"These funding cuts will cause death and disease that is preventable,” said Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy for Partners In Health. “The State Department is setting up other countries for failure with the co-financing requirements outlined in these agreements, but it will be patients who will pay the ultimate price.”
Maybarduk told The Washington Post that Sierra Leone will be required under its MOU to fill a 71% health funding gap by 2030.
“It’s going to be very difficult, and if a country like that falls behind, and then is punished for that, then of course the health problems compound," said Maybarduk.
The State Department denied to the Post that the Trump administration will not spend all the foreign health assistance funds appropriated by Congress; it suggested that more of the money than usual may go to religious organizations as well as an "innovation fund" to support US technology that aims to fight disease.
Last week, Public Citizen sued the Trump administration under FOIA to obtain the rest of the MOUs that remain hidden from the public.
The White House, said the group, "has kept the public in the dark about the full details of its plans for the future of US support for global health."
"The State Department has negotiated these bilateral agreements," the group said, "on rushed timelines with limited participation from civil society and affected communities."
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Talarico Protests as Texas Swing County Plans to Close 92 Polling Places
“The most powerful people in this county, the most powerful people in this country, don’t want us to be able to vote easily."
Aug 31, 2026
Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is pushing for one of Texas' most important swing counties to drop plans to close nearly a third of its polling places before November's midterms.
Amid public outcry, the Commissioners Court for Tarrant County—which contains Fort Worth and borders Dallas—plans to hold a vote on Tuesday on whether to shutter 92 of the polling places used in the 2022 election, many of which serve the city's poorer and minority populations.
If Democrats flip the Senate this November, the road to that outcome will almost certainly run through Texas. A Democrat has not won a statewide election there since 1994, but Talarico may be in a position to break the trend—leading Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in most polls.
Tarrant County narrowly supported then-Rep. Collin Allred, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in 2024. Talarico said the closure of polling places was meant to suppress turnout and help Republicans cling to their advantage in the state.
“The most powerful people in this county, the most powerful people in this country, don’t want us to be able to vote easily,” Talarico said at a press event Sunday, during which he argued that the closures would result in longer travel for voters and lower turnout, especially in heavily Black and Latino communities.
"We're here fighting for the rights of everybody," Talarico added. "The problem is when we let voting rights become a partisan issue. That's when we walk down a very dangerous path in this country."
Proponents of the closures have described them as a way for the county to save money, rather than a political tactic.
“We’re clearly not trying to suppress the vote,” state Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-66), the chairman of the Texas House Elections Committee, told the Associated Press. “That’s a silly accusation.”
But Republican officials in Tarrant County have, in the past, explicitly tied closures of certain voting locations to partisan aims. In 2024, Republican County Judge Tim O'Hare attempted, unsuccessfully, to remove several early voting sites on college campuses, a move that the county's GOP chairman said would have been "a serious win for Republicans in Tarrant County."
In 2025's off-year elections, Republicans voted 3-2 to reduce the number of polling locations by more than a third and cut funding for free bus rides to the polls for low-income residents. The previous year, they introduced new rules blocking what they derided as "left-wing" groups from registering voters inside county buildings.
At the state level, meanwhile, Texas has carried out unprecedented mid-decade redistricting to hand more US House seats to Republicans at the behest of President Donald Trump. And following Trump's false assertions that his loss in the 2020 election was marred by fraud, Texas introduced several new restrictions on mail-in voting that were found to have significantly reduced turnout.
Tuesday's scheduled vote in Tarrant County comes after commissioners opted to table an earlier proposal that would have shuttered nearly half the county's polling places.
An analysis of that plan showed that the lowest-income third of ZIP codes would lose nearly 58% of their Election Day polling sites, while the highest-income third would lose just under 22%. Majority-minority ZIP codes would have lost nearly 52% of their polling places, while majority-white ones would have lost just a third of theirs.
A similar analysis has not yet been conducted for the new proposal. But civil rights groups still argue that the proposal will disenfranchise many voters.
"Cutting the number of poll sites, especially at such a large scale, will harm Tarrant County voters and their right to participate in the democratic process—and cause particular harm to Black, Latino, and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] voters who already face significant barriers to exercising that fundamental right," wrote groups including the ACLU, the Legal Defense Fund, and the Texas Civil Rights Project, in a letter to the Commissioners' Court on Friday.
They emphasized that the polling places slated to close under the new proposal were clustered in areas such as south and southeast Fort Worth and central and eastern Arlington, which have predominantly nonwhite populations.
Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, a Democrat who is running to unseat O'Hare as county judge and spoke alongside Talarico on Sunday, argued that while it was an improvement on the earlier proposal, "dropping 92 Election Day polling places is crazy."
"We should not compare this proposal to the worst proposal," she said. "We should compare it to the access that Tarrant County voters actually had in 2022."
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'This Is Ethnic Cleansing': Retired Israeli Generals Decry Settler Terrorism Against West Bank Palestinians
"Once a society behaves this way, that society is doomed."
Aug 31, 2026
Several retired Israel Defense Forces generals are publicly denouncing their own government for permitting settlers living in the illegally occupied West Bank to wage a campaign of violence against the Palestinian population.
As The New York Times reported on Monday, the retired generals have been touring the West Bank in recent days to witness first-hand the damage that has been done to Palestinians' livelihoods by the Israeli settlers, whose violent actions have grown so outrageous that even US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described them as "terrorists."
Ephraim Sneh, retired brigadier general and former minister of health, did not mince words in describing the settlers' campaign of attacking Palestinian villages.
"This is ethnic cleansing, to put it simply," said Sneh.
Asaf Agmon, a retired Air Force general, likened the attacks on Palestinians to the kinds of pogroms once suffered by Jews living in Europe.
Agmon also said that the Israeli government's tacit support of these attacks bodes ill for the future of Israel.
“Once a society behaves this way,” said Agmon, “that society is doomed.”
The tours of the West Bank are being organized by Yaakov Or, a retired Israeli general who spent much of his career working inside the occupied territory.
According to the Times, Or begins every tour with a speech where he emphasizes the importance of speaking out against what he says are indefensible atrocities.
"When I take you to see what is happening in the West Bank, you will have two choices," Or said during the start of a recent tour. "You can stay silent, and be complicit, or you can speak out, and tell everyone you know about what is happening."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend once again downplayed the significance of settler attacks on Palestinians, describing them as rogue actions taken by troubled individuals.
"We are talking about a very small handful of people," Netanyahu said, "usually young people who come with all kinds of distress and problems, often from home, and I am determined to stop this."
The Israeli prime minister also said that attacking Palestinian villages "harms the settlement movement" and "gives us a bad name around the world."
Netanyahu on "settler" terrorism:
We are talking about a very small handful of people, usually young people who come with all kinds of distress and problems, often from home, and I am determined to stop this.
You want to enter a village? You will not enter. That is not your… pic.twitter.com/MlnKxlaxlB
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 30, 2026
Palestinian Christian theologian Munther Isaac pointed out that the Israeli government itself has been actively working to push Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank, pointing to recent Israeli demolitions of homes in the town of Birzeit.
"This is what ethnic cleansing looks like in Palestine," wrote Isaac.
Birzeit: Israeli occupation forces demolished two inhabited residential buildings. Each was four stories high, with every floor covering 250 square meters.
This is what ethnic cleansing looks like in Palestine. pic.twitter.com/XsYu92VUFw
— Munther Isaac منذر اسحق (@MuntherIsaac) August 31, 2026
Human rights organizations for months have been sounding the alarm about the situation in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have routinely attacked Palestinians at their own homes.
An analysis published by the Carter Center last month found that “settler attacks are now the leading cause of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank,” as “more than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced by settler attacks and home demolitions this year—double the daily rate of the previous three years.”
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'The President of the United States Is Mentally Unwell': Deranged Trump Posts AI Slop of Iran Bombing
The chief executive of Iran's government-run oil company dismissed the US president's social media posts "laughable."
Aug 31, 2026
US President Donald Trump published a string of unhinged posts to his social media platform overnight and into Monday morning, including an artificial intelligence-generated video attempting to depict American forces bombing Kharg Island—Iran's primary oil export terminal.
The post, which drew mockery from Iranian officials and alarm from observers concerned about Trump's increasingly erratic behavior, came after US forces attacked Larak Island, which is located hundreds of miles east of Kharg in the Strait of Hormuz.
"Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!" Trump wrote in the caption of his post. It is unclear whether Trump, who frequently shares inane AI-generated videos with his 13 million Truth Social followers, confused Larak Island with Kharg Island, which the president has repeatedly threatened to invade.
An unnamed US official confirmed to Reuters in the wake of Trump's post that American forces did not target Kharg Island during their Sunday attacks.
Trump posts AI slop with the caption, “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!” pic.twitter.com/HVTF9xFC6B
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 31, 2026
Hamid Bovard, the chief executive of Iran's government-run oil company, called Trump's posts "laughable" and described conditions on Kharg Island as "calm and appropriate."
Iran retaliated for the US strike on Larak with a drone attack on two American military installations in Jordan and condemned the Trump administration's ongoing aggression as an "obvious violation" of the United Nations Charter.
"It is obvious that full responsibility for the consequences of America’s new aggressive actions, as well as the continuation of the maritime blockade and economic war against Iran, rests with the US regime and all parties that in any way cooperate or participate in preparing and implementing the US’ illegal and unlawful actions," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The military exchange between the US and Iran was the first in weeks amid stalled efforts to achieve a lasting solution to the historically unpopular war that Trump and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, launched in late February, sparking a global energy crisis that has jacked up gas prices in the US and prompted fears of a global food emergency.
In a separate Truth Social post on Monday morning, Trump declared that Iran is "officially a Failed Nation," adding in all-caps, "IT IS DEAD!"
"They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country" Trump wrote.
"They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!" added the US president, who has been credibly accused of committing war crimes in Iran and elsewhere.
Trump's attempt to convey overwhelming and unflagging US military superiority conflicts with internal assessments by top American officials, who reportedly warned Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month that "prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the US homeland." US intelligence assessments have also found that, despite Trump's claims, Iran's government is still intact after six months of American bombing.
"The president of the United States is mentally unwell and has been for quite some time," Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who has supported congressional efforts to end Trump's illegal war, wrote in a social media post on Monday. "He fantasized blowing up Iran’s Kharg Island. Except it didn’t happen."
"And why would Trump need to blow it up if, as Trump claims, the US has total control of the Strait," Lieu asked.
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