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Voters in Gainesville and High Springs, Florida, a rural area north of the city, held empty chair town halls this past week after Cammack declined to hold a town hall after numerous requests.

At a 25 April empty chair town hall in Gainesville, Florida, several constituents, which included retired federal workers and teachers, expressed frustration with a lack of response from Cammack’s office and several cited promises from her office that a town hall would be scheduled in April 2025.

“People are afraid. They’re celebrating when their social security check shows up because they’re afraid it might not,” said Jenn Powell, co-chair of the Alachua County Labor Coalition, and one of the organizers of the town hall. “So while Kat Cammack is not listening to her constituents, we decided to have a town hall without her, and will deliver the forms of questions and video to her office.”

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said on Monday it has started using polygraph tests to aid investigations aimed at identifying the source of leaks emanating from within the law enforcement agency.

“We can confirm the FBI has begun administering polygraph tests to identify the source of information leaks within the bureau,” the bureau’s public affairs office told Reuters in a statement.

Donald Trump’s administration has been cracking down on people who leak information to journalists since he returned to office in January.

Last week, the Republican US Department of Justice made it easier to subpoena records and testimony from journalists.

Last week, a federal judge blocked the administration's latest effort to withhold funding from 16 jurisdictions, including San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul and New Haven.

"Here we are again," wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco, who found that the Trump administration's actions were likely unconstitutional and granted a preliminary injunction.

"The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve," Orrick wrote.

As a statement from the congressman's office details, Trump's alleged constitutional violations are:

• Obstruction of Justice and Abuse of Executive Power: Including denial of due process, unlawful deportations, defiance of court orders, and misuse of the Department of Justice.
• Usurpation of Appropriations Power: For dismantling congressionally established agencies and impounding federal funds.
• Abuse of Trade Powers and International Aggression: Including imposing economically damaging tariffs and threatening military invasion against sovereign nations.
• Violation of First Amendment Rights: Through retaliatory actions against critics, media, and attorneys exercising constitutionally protected speech.
• Creation of an Unlawful Office: By establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and unlawfully empowering Elon Musk to unilaterally violate the Constitution.
• Bribery and Corruption: Involving dismissing criminal cases, soliciting foreign emoluments, and extortionate settlements for personal and political gain.
• Tyrannical Overreach: Seeking to consolidate unchecked power, erode civil liberties, and defy constitutional limits on presidential authority.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, led by billionaire oil industry ally Doug Burgum, said the new permitting measures would "take a multi-year process down to just 28 days at most," citing President Donald Trump's declaration of a "national energy emergency" at the start of his second term.

"In response, the Department will utilize emergency authorities under existing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act," the agency said.

Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

Working with Maria Stephan, a researcher at the ICNC, Chenoweth performed an extensive review of the literature on civil resistance and social movements from 1900 to 2006 – a data set then corroborated with other experts in the field. They primarily considered attempts to bring about regime change. A movement was considered a success if it fully achieved its goals both within a year of its peak engagement and as a direct result of its activities. A regime change resulting from foreign military intervention would not be considered a success, for instance. A campaign was considered violent, meanwhile, if it involved bombings, kidnappings, the destruction of infrastructure – or any other physical harm to people or property.

Source in article from 2019

A lawsuit seeking to stop the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from disclosing tens of millions of Americans’ private, sensitive information to Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) can continue, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Judge Denise L. Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York partially rejected the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed Feb. 11 on behalf of two labor unions and individual current and former government workers across the country. This decision is a victory: The court agreed that the claims that OPM illegally disclosed highly personal records of millions of people to DOGE agents can move forward with the goal of stopping that ongoing disclosure and requiring that any shared information be returned.

Cote ruled current and former federal employees "may pursue their request for injunctive relief under the APA [Administrative Procedure Act]. ... The defendants’ Kafkaesque argument to the contrary would deprive the plaintiffs of any recourse under the law."

An appeals court has paved the way for a likely showdown in the US supreme court over presidential power after reinstating two federal agency heads fired from their posts in Donald Trump’s all-out assault on the government bureaucracy.

The Washington DC court of appeals ordered that Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox be restored to the positions with the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) respectively. The ruling overturned a previous verdict by a three-judge panel which had ruled that their dismissals – which had been earlier overturned under legal challenge – were indeed legal.

To pressure broadcasters, Carr is invoking the rarely enforced news distortion policy that was developed starting in the late 1960s and says the FCC should consider revoking broadcast licenses.

Although CBS appears to have a strong defense, Carr can make life difficult for broadcasters simply by opening investigations. As experts have previously told Ars, the FCC can use its rules to harass licensees and hold up applications related to business deals. Carr said in November that the news distortion complaint over the 60 Minutes interview would factor into the FCC's review of CBS owner Paramount's transfer of TV broadcast station licenses to Skydance.

This year, the head of Connecticut’s Department of Motor Vehicles made a startling public admission, telling lawmakers that the agency, which regulates the towing industry, has never enforced a century-old law meant to protect drivers whose cars are towed.

Under that law, if vehicle owners don’t reclaim their towed cars or can’t afford the fees, towing companies can sell them, but they are required to hold onto the proceeds for a year so the vehicle owner can claim the money. Tow companies are entitled to subtract their fees. But, even if the owner still doesn’t come forward, the companies aren’t supposed to pocket the profits and must turn over any remaining money to the state.

Immigrants aren’t the only people at risk. With Trump pursuing “retribution” against his political enemies, Clearview offers a range of frightening applications. “It creates a really disturbingly powerful tool for police that can identify nearly every person at a protest or a reproductive health facility or a house of worship with just photos of those people’s faces,” says Cahn.

No federal laws regulate facial recognition, and many federal agencies have deployed Clearview for years with little accountability. Consider that the FBI—now run by Kash Patel, who has claimed FBI agents incited January 6, pledged to target journalists, and penned a book containing the names of officials he planned to settle scores with—is another major federal customer. Patel’s new deputy director, Dan Bongino, is a conspiratorial right-wing influencer who has used violent rhetoric about liberals and called for jailing Democrats. (The FBI declined to comment on its use of Clearview or on Bongino’s extremist views.)

Records obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and shared with Mother Jones indicate that ICE has mainly used Clearview in its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division, which traditionally conducts criminal probes into human trafficking and drug smuggling. But during Trump’s first term, HSI agents were deeply involved in deportation actions alongside ERO teams, participating in aggressive raids in sanctuary cities and sometimes arresting hundreds of undocumented workers in a day. Now, the units are teaming up again to round up immigrants.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of local law enforcement departments have also embraced Clearview with even looser oversight. Clearview’s user code of conduct states that its search results are “not intended nor permitted to be used as admissible evidence in a court of law or any court filing.” But cops have used the search results, and nothing else, to secure warrants, rather than as leads to support further investigation. This practice has led to wrongful arrests and risks putting every American, not just every immigrant, in a permanent police lineup.

The government has said Mr Garcia was deported on 15 March due to an "administrative error", although they also maintain he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his family denies.

In their emergency appeal to America's highest court, the administration argued the Maryland judge lacked authority to issue the order and that US officials cannot compel El Salvador to return Mr Garcia.

A secretive quasi-governmental condo blacklist is growing exponentially, making it difficult for owners in scores of troubled buildings in Miami and South Florida to sell or get loans for repairs even as their associations face a fiscal and time crunch to meet stringent new state safety regulations.

The number of local condos on the list, which is maintained by federally chartered mortgage finance corporation Fannie Mae, has more than doubled in the past two years, according to new data released by a law firm that has been tracking it.

The total number of condos on the confidential database in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties sits at 696 as of March, the data from Allcock Marcus, which obtained it from a confidential source, shows. That’s nearly half the 1,438 condos that Fannie Mae lists as ineligible for its backing in all of Florida.

“Personnel that should not have been cut, were cut,” Kennedy told reporters on Thursday. “We’re reinstating them. And that was always the plan. Part of the Doge, we talked about this from the beginning, is we’re going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstated, because we’ll make mistakes.”

It’s still not clear which staff will be reinstated or what functions the health department will retain. The huge job cuts have affected broad swaths of the department’s work, with experts lost across areas as diverse as smoking, infertility and mine safety.

The cuts to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) included the division devoted to crafting tobacco policy, which was paid for by the tobacco industry.

The sweeping package of tariffs unveiled by Donald Trump on Wednesday includes an exemption for the energy sector, which is a clear sign of the president’s fealty to his big oil donors over the American people, advocates say.

Trump’s new 10% universal tariffs – which are higher for many major economies – are wreaking havoc on the global economy and are expected to increase consumer prices in the US. But the levies will not apply to many fossil fuel products, including liquefied natural gas imports, crude oil from Canada, and materials needed for making petrochemicals.

The study looked at health and wealth data of more than 73,000 adults across the US and Europe who were 50 to 85 years old in 2010. There were more than 19,000 from the US, nearly 27,000 from Northern and Western Europe, nearly 19,000 from Eastern Europe, and nearly 9,000 from Southern Europe. For each region, participants were divided into wealth quartiles, with the first being the poorest and the fourth being the richest. The researchers then followed participants until 2022, tracking deaths.

While less access to health care and weaker social structures can explain the gap between the wealthy and poor in the US, it doesn't explain the differences between the wealthy in the US and the wealthy in Europe, the researchers note. There may be other systemic factors at play that make Americans uniquely short-lived, such as diet, environment, behaviors, and cultural and social differences.

"If we want to improve health in the US, we need to better understand the underlying factors that contribute to these differences—particularly amongst similar socioeconomic groups—and why they translate to different health outcomes across nations," Papanicolas said.

Current and former employees told ProPublica that they have seen the plant in Sturgis, Michigan, take shortcuts when cleaning manufacturing equipment and testing for microbes. The employees said leaks in the factory are sometimes not fixed, a dangerous problem that can promote bacterial growth. They also said workers at the facility do not always take required swabs to check for pathogens while performing maintenance during production. Supervisors have urged workers to increase production and have retaliated against workers who complained about problems, the employees said.

One worker complained to the Food and Drug Administration in February, saying the plant has experienced “persistent leaks” and “unaddressed contamination issues,” according to correspondence between the worker and the agency viewed by ProPublica. Water and chemicals have pooled on the floor, the worker said. In one spot, white sweetener oozed from a pipe and formed a pile like a stalagmite on top of a tank used for blending, the employee said.

The complaints come as the Trump administration is dismantling wide swaths of the federal government — including conducting mass layoffs at the FDA — and filling some key regulatory positions with industry-friendly voices. The new head of the FDA division that oversees baby formula is a corporate lawyer who previously defended Abbott against a lawsuit.

“You are receiving this email as one of approximately 7,000 probationary employees who were separated from service and have been reinstated in compliance with recent court orders,” the email states. “At this time, while you remain on administrative leave, you will soon receive instructions for how to return on full-time duty by April 14.”

The agency recently reinstated these probationary employees to comply with rulings from federal judges, but put them on paid administrative leave, rather than bring them back to work.

The IRS says employees who choose to return to their jobs will soon be given instructions on obtaining a Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card, IT equipment and workspace assignments.

A coalition of advocacy organizations sued the Trump administration Monday over President Donald Trump's executive order requiring Americans to present proof of citizenship to register to vote. Such a requirement — beyond exceeding the president's authority over state-run elections — would effectively silence the voice of college students registering for the first time, unsheltered voters and Native voters, argued the Arizona Students' Association, one of the parties to the lawsuit.

"We really saw firsthand what it looks like in Arizona if we do have these onerous citizenship requirements, so we really wanted to be a part of the voice fighting back to make sure that doesn't happen across the country," Kyle Nitschke, the organization's co-executive director, told Salon, referring to a now-blocked state law that also requires proof of citizenship. In a statement accompanying the lawsuit, he described Trump's order as a "clear attack on our voting rights," arguing that a federal proof of citizenship requirement would further disenfranchise college students.

Unlike other systems that Doge has accessed, two former HHS officials say, the UAC portal contains no financial or employee records and is intended to be a means of tracking unaccompanied children to provide them with care. The portal’s data is highly sensitive because the children’s case files may include reports of trauma such as physical or sexual abuse, and because the data could be used for immigration enforcement purposes.

“I certainly would be concerned about Doge access to the portal – why it was used, which child information was accessed and for what purpose? Were mental health records accessed?” former HHS official Jen Smyers said. “These are the most vulnerable children in their most vulnerable moments.”

Teams that fulfilled requests for government documents lost their jobs on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration's 10,000-person staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Their work, mandated by Congress since the 1960s under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, gives the public a view of the inner workings of federal health agencies.

Some public records teams were entirely cut at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies on Tuesday, according to multiple current and former staffers who did not want to be named because of fears of retribution. A few people have been left standing on other FOIA teams within these agencies, for now.

A band of Republican lawmakers sank an effort Tuesday by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to kill a plan to allow remote voting for lawmakers who become new parents, a bitter dispute that brought the House floor to a halt.

A procedural rule vote to advance the House GOP’s package of bills for the week failed 206-222, with nine Republicans bucking Johnson and voting with all 213 Democrats. The failed vote means that, for now, those pieces of legislation cannot move forward for final votes.

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín’s order runs through April 16 and requires the Trump administration to resume funding for the Acacia Center for Justice and other nonprofit groups.

Martínez-Olguín determined that nonprofit groups have legal standing to sue the government to preserve funding. Plaintiffs are arguing that they’re entitled to funds through the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

Martínez-Olguín’s order prevents the termination of funding for legal representation for these children, allowing the Acacia Center for Justice to continue its services while legal proceedings continue.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday largely upheld the Food and Drug Administration’s denials of two companies’ applications to sell flavored liquids for use in e-cigarettes. In a unanimous ruling, the justices threw out a ruling by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit holding that the FDA had improperly pulled a “regulatory switcheroo” when it gave the companies instructions that they followed but then ignored those instructions and denied authorization while imposing new requirements. In a 46-page ruling by Justice Samuel Alito, the court sent the case back to the court of appeals so that it could take another look at one aspect of the dispute – specifically, whether it made a difference that the FDA had changed its position and failed to consider marketing plans that the companies had submitted as part of their applications.