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MSNBC's Joe Scarborough warned that President Donald Trump had little room to maneuver in negotiating an end to Russia's war in Ukraine — and he said the stakes were exceedingly high for him.

The U.S. president spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone Monday, and afterward said the two adversaries must hash out a peace deal with one another, possibly with the pope's help.

Donald Trump’s-revamped Kennedy Center announced its upcoming season Monday — and the stage will be packed with drag queens.

The president overthrew the prestigious performing arts center's board of directors in February, taking over as chairman and vowing to rid it of wokeness — including drag performances.

President Donald Trump's controversial pick for commissioner of the IRS is now the subject of an investigation after a report exposed his social media account followed providers of mature and sexually explicit content.

Trump nominated Billy Long for the IRS role, sparking debate over Long's past endorsement of tax-avoidance schemes, his ties to firms involved in tax credit controversies, and concerns about his qualifications to lead the agency. His nomination is pending Senate confirmation, and he is expected to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.

This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

On a recent morning, thick fog lingered over the hills and hollows of Ozark County, Missouri, limiting the view of Lick Creek. It and other waterways raged out of their banks in overnight flash flooding, only to recede with debris strewn about.

County commissioners huddled inside the courthouse, one block from a muddy rodeo ring, discussing bridge inspections and the path forward. Some washed-out areas were only accessible by four-wheel drive.

They’d put up more “road closed” signs, the commissioners said, if only people would stop stealing them.

Ozark County — estimated population 9,090 — is used to doing without. A mere nick in the Bible Belt, it doesn’t even have a stoplight.

What it does have is a 24-bed jail with a cattle trough baptismal pool in the recreational area.

It also has an ambitious sheriff who sees his prayers answered in a new contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that could boost his $1.1 million annual budget.

“It’s a pain in the butt because this is a whole new ground that we are covering, but then, you know, when you are one of the poorest counties in the state of Missouri, I’ve got to figure out how to pay for law enforcement,” Sheriff Cass Martin told the Marshall Project - St. Louis. “And that’s not easy, especially when you can’t even get new recruits. Nobody wants to be in law enforcement. It’s dying.”

Ozark County is one of many places, big and small, that the Trump administration is depending on to pull off one of the largest mass deportations from the U.S. in recent history. An enormous ramp-up in detention capacity is underway. New contracts are being negotiated. Existing contracts with the federal government are being expanded. In the ICE contract’s infancy, Ozark County is already reaping the benefits by raising wages and hiring for new positions in law enforcement.

As of early May, tracking reports show ICE contracting with or operating 147 public and private detention facilities, including three in Missouri. That’s up from 107 facilities reported in the final days of the Biden administration. On Feb. 24, Martin signed a contract for Ozark County, which isn’t yet on the list.

ICE plans to spend $45 billion on new contracts to hold and transport detainees and provide detainee services, according to a federal request for proposals. Counties like Ozark are getting a taste in federal dollars of what that expansion means.

Sheriffs say the feds pay well, yet the detention and transportation contracts come with much more scrutiny and oversight than typical jail work, especially in Missouri, which doesn’t have statewide jail standards.

Still, ICE reported that eight detainees had died nationally while in custody this year, as of May 5, including one death in a rural Missouri jail that the local coroner ruled a suicide. In 2024, ICE reported 11 deaths.

Some groups that advocate for ICE detainees are concerned that people from all over the world are increasingly being held in communities without well-established legal watchdogs and medical services.

Contracting with local jails “is the easiest way to get a (detention) facility up and running without any of the risk to the federal government,” said Romelia Graefrath, co-executive director of Mariposa Legal, a nonprofit in Indianapolis that fights for immigrant rights. “The end result is people get hurt, and then that is a huge liability for these communities that are already suffering.”

A prominent legal analyst delivered a scathing takedown of the Justice Department's decision to charge a New Jersey congresswoman for her role in a confrontation outside a federal detention facility earlier this month.

Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) was charged by federal prosecutors with assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement officers during a clash outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark. Federal prosecutors said McIver elbowed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was part of a group of Democratic lawmakers and local officials visiting the facility to protest its use as a migrant holding center. The group said they sought to conduct legitimate congressional oversight.

A civil rights official in California is publicly cheering at the severe cancer diagnosis of former President Joe Biden — and hopes President Donald Trump is next.

According to Chuck Ross of the conservative Washington Free Beacon, Zahra Billoo, who heads up the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and sits on the California Civil Liberties Program, proclaimed on Facebook "that Biden’s cancer diagnosis was 'God’s wrath' for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Billoo added that she's praying Biden’s cancer will be 'as aggressive' as Israel's military actions against Hamas."

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow took to her eponymous show on Monday night to poke fun at Donald Trump's family over a project they have overseas that is now embroiled in scandal, as a key document in the deal was forged.

In opening her show, Maddow discussed large-scale protests in Serbia sparked by a deadly train station roof collapse, which exposed government corruption under the country's authoritarian, Trump-like president.

President Donald Trump told Walmart executives that they must be the ones responsible for the tariffs on foreign goods coming into the United States, reports revealed Monday. Now, Trump is being compared to the former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who was accused of ignoring the suffering of her people.

Lucy Caldwell, the campaign manager for former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh's (IL) presidential campaign, joined with "The Weeknight" hosts as Alecia Menendez walked through the report.

President Donald Trump's interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, announced on Monday that she would dismiss trespassing charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka — but that she would instead file more serious charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ).

Baraka, who is running for governor of the state, had been charged after he joined in a protest with McIver and several other lawmakers at Delaney Hall, a private, for-profit detention facility that has become Immigration and Customs Enforcement's biggest lockup center in the Northeast, despite state laws prohibiting such a facility from operating there.

A federal judge dealt Donald Trump another legal blow on Monday, giving his administration a deadline of Wednesday afternoon to facilitate contact between a Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador and his lawyers, according to a report.

Judge Keith Ellison in Texas gave the federal government 24 hours to confirm the location of Widmer Josneyder Agelviz Sanguino, 24, and 48 hours to “restore and help maintain attorney-client communication” with him, NBC News reported.

After an initial embarrassing defeat, Republicans on the House Budget Committee managed to move forward President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" on tax cuts, energy deregulation, and border security through the House Budget Committee, and they are expected to debate it in the dead of morning on Wednesday in the House Rules Committee, with an eye for getting it passed out of the House by Memorial Day.

But while the MAGA hardliners allowed it through the Budget Committee after some commitments from leadership to make Medicaid work requirements and the phaseout of alternative energy subsidies stricter, much remains up in the air. And one of the bigger hardliners, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), is still unconvinced he will vote for the end product.

President Donald Trump's administration has finally stopped "lying," at least when it comes to tariffs, remarked an MSNBC host on Monday.

At the top of their show, "The Weeknight," co-host Symone Sanders Townsend responded to recent reports about a key confession from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly characterized the $400 million luxury Boeing 747 the government of Qatar offered him as a "gift" — but according to CNN, it turns out the Trump administration asked them for the plane first.

Specifically, reported Alex Marquardt, Kristen Holmes, and Natasha Bertrand, administration officials "first approached Qatar to inquire about acquiring a Boeing 747 that could be used as Air Force One by President Donald Trump, four sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.