Navigating Iran crisis, Trump relies on experience over star power  —  Gabbard, Hegseth outside the inner circle as president weighs military actions against Iran.  —  Summary55  —  As President-elect Donald Trump assembled his core national security team early this year …

U.S. to Review Social Media Posts of Student and Scholar Visa Applicants  —  The State Department is restarting the processing of visa applications from students and visiting scholars, but is screening for “hostility” toward the United States.  —  The State Department plans to review …

The Supreme Court's incoherent new attack on trans rights, explained  —  What the hell did the Court just do to equal protection law? … It was obvious, if you listened to the Supreme Court's oral argument in United States v. Skrmetti last December, that the Court would vote …

Parsing ICE's mixed-up, hard-to-believe assault claims  —  ICE officials keep touting a 413 percent increase in assaults on officers to justify anonymity.  —  Last month, I wrote a column questioning why Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were increasingly disguising their identities as they conducted sweeps and arrests.

Trump administration to shut down LGBTQ youth suicide hotline  —  The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will no longer use its LGBTQ youth service line starting July 17.  The Trump administration says the move will “focus on serving all help seekers.”  —  The Trump administration will shut …

Musk Savages ‘Snake’ Trump Aide as Their White House Feud Erupts  —  VENOMOUS WORDS  —  Sergio Gor has been blamed in part for the explosive breakdown in the alliance between the president and his former “First Buddy.”  —  Elon Musk publicly ripped into a top White House aide who fueled his falling out with President Donald Trump.

Hegseth Recommended a ‘Passive Approach’ to Honoring Juneteenth  —  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requested the Pentagon go light on commemorating Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery … Juneteenth marks the day in 1865, after the Civil War ended, when Union soldiers arrived …

As Trump pledges mass deportation, he's creating more undocumented people  —  More than 1 million people who were granted legal entry to the country under different programs are now being considered illegally here by the Trump administration.  —  Florndjie Camey, 31, had gone from a bleak future …

How My Reporting on the Columbia Protests Led to My Deportation  —  As an Australian who wrote about the demonstrations while on campus, I gave my phone a superficial clean before flying to the U.S. I underestimated what I was up against.  —  Many people are detained at U.S. airports for reasons they find arbitrary and mysterious.

The Subway Is Not Scary  —  In 2014, New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro (who would go on to become one of the paper's superstars as host of its podcast “The Daily") posted this tweet:  —  After receiving a good deal of ridicule, Barbaro deleted the tweet.  The nervous sentiment he expressed, however, lives on.

Naming Villains and Values  —  If you tell people they face an existential threat but don't act as if there is one, how can you expect to get other people to help you fight it?  That's the question Democrats need to ask themselves on a number of fronts this week, as I discussed on Substack Live …

Justice Dept. to Cut Two-Thirds of Inspectors Monitoring Gun Sales  —  The move is part of the Trump administration's effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  —  The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors …

Accounts peddling child abuse content flood some X hashtags as safety partner cuts ties  —  Thorn, a non-profit that provides detection and moderation software related to child safety, said they canceled their contract with X after the platform stopped paying them.

Some Democratic senators regret voting to confirm Kristi Noem as DHS secretary  —  After seven Democrats voted for Noem, some say they'd now oppose her in the wake of Trump's aggressive deportation plans and last week's incident involving Sen. Alex Padilla.  —  WASHINGTON — Five days …

ICE Bars Reps. Goldman and Nadler From Immigrant Detention Area ‘Approaching Capacity’  —  Two members of Congress were refused entry to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention areas inside 26 Federal Plaza Wednesday morning, despite rules laid out by Congress allowing members to conduct unannounced visits for oversight purposes.

June 18, 2025 (Wednesday)  —  Tomorrow is the federal holiday honoring Juneteenth, the celebration of the announcement in Texas on June 19th, 1865, that enslaved Americans were free.  —  That announcement came as late as it did because, while General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army …

Appeals court says DOJ cannot represent Trump in appeal of E. Jean Carroll case  —  A jury last year ordered Trump to pay the columnist $83 million in damages.  —  President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Oval Office of the White House as members of Italian soccer club Juventus pay a visit in Washington, June 18, 2025.