Brad Reed, Common Dreams

New data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Tuesday continued to show weakness in the American jobs market.

The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) shows that the number of new hires in February decreased to 4.8 million, which was roughly 400,000 fewer hires than were recorded in February 2025.

The report also shows that the US hiring rate in February fell to just 3.1%, which is the lowest rate since April 2020, when the economy was shut down due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The good news in the report is that the number of quits and layoffs remained relatively steady, meaning that people who already have jobs are retaining them at a healthy clip.

But Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that these bad hiring numbers came before President Donald Trump launched an illegal war with Iran, which has since destabilized global energy markets and raised prices for oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel.

“This is a hiring recession,” Long wrote in a social media post. “And Americans are feeling it. There were notable hiring pullbacks in February in hospitality and construction. Bottom line: The job market was already frozen before the war in Iran began. It’s worrying that a ‘no hire, no fire’ situation could turn into a ‘no hire, start to fire’ job market quickly if there isn’t a resolution soon.”

Long’s analysis was echoed by Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at hiring site Indeed, who wrote in a research note flagged by Axios that hiring in the US “was stuck in neutral going into this [Iran] conflict,” and “getting it into gear just got harder” thanks to the war.

Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, noted that hiring rates in the US hit 3.1% or lower the last two times the country was in a severe recession.

“3.1% is not only comparable to the Covid low point—it’s also comparable to late 2009 and early 2010, when the unemployment rate was around 10%,” Berger explained. “Hiring was ice cold in February.”

Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who has been a harsh critic of Trump’s tariffs, found that the February JOLTS report wiped out an unexpected January increase in manufacturing job openings that the president’s allies attributed to his trade policies.

“Alas, the perils of cherry-picking,” Lincicome commented.

The new data on hiring in the US job market comes weeks after a BLS report estimated that the economy lost 92,000 jobs in February. On the whole, the American economy has posted a net loss of jobs since Trump announced his “liberation day” global tariffs in April 2025.

While turnout numbers have not yet been confirmed, organizers expected more than 9 million people to attend the events nationwide.

This is the third large-scale No Kings protest. Organizers said the first two events held in June and October of last year drew roughly 5 million and 7 million people, respectively.

Millions of American across all 50 states on Saturday rallied against President Donald Trump and his authoritarian agenda during nationwide No Kings protests.

The flagship No Kings rally in Minneapolis, which organizers Indivisible estimated drew over 200,000 demonstrators, featured speeches from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and actress Jane Fonda, as well as a special performance from rock icon Bruce Springsteen, who performed “Streets of Minneapolis,” a song he wrote in tribute of slain protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

The rally in Minneapolis was one of more than 3,300 No Kings events across the US, and aerial video footage showed massive crowds gathered for demonstrations in cities including Washington, DC, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Diego.

In San Francisco, thousands of anti-Trump activists gathered on a local beach to form a human sign that read, “Trump must go now! No ICE, no wars, no lies, no kings.”

Across the nation, early indications were that 9 million people were expected to attend. That number isn't yet final. Last year's two No Kings protests have 5 million and 7 million, respectively, ABC reported.

No Kings rallies weren’t just held in major US cities. In a series of social media posts, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg collected photos and videos of No Kings events in communities including Arvada, Colorado, Madison, New Jersey, and St. Augustine, Florida, as well as international No Kings events held in London and Madrid.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said of the protests, “The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them.”

Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, said on Saturday that a nationwide general strike is being planned for May 1 that will be modeled on the day of action residents of Minnesota organized in January against the brutality carried out by federal immigration enforcement officials.

Appearing at the flagship No Kings rally in Minneapolis, Levin praised the strength shown by the Minnesota protesters in the face of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) siege of their city this year, and said his organization wanted to replicate it across the country.

“The next major national action of this movement is not just going to be another protest,” Levin said. “It is a tactical escalation... It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota’s own day of truth and action.”

Levin then outlined what the event would entail.

“On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, ‘No business as usual,’” he said. “No work, no school, no shopping. We’re going to show up and say we’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.”

Levin added that “we are going to build on that courage, that sacrifice” that Minnesota residents showed during their day of action in January, and vowed “to demonstrate that regular people are the greatest threat to fascism in this country.”

In an interview with Payday Report published Saturday, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg said that the goal of the nationwide strike action would be to send “a clear message: we demand a government that invests in our communities, not one that enriches billionaires, fuels endless war, or deploys masked agents to intimidate our neighbors.”

The No Kings protests against President Donald Trump’s authoritarian government, which Indivisible has been central in organizing, have brought millions of Americans into the streets.

Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris estimated that the previous No Kings event, held in October, drew at least 5 million people nationwide, making it likely “the largest single-day political protest ever.”

A Social Security advocacy organization on Thursday blasted the Trump administration for covering up damaging information contained in an inspector general report released in December.

According to The Washington Post, a report from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) inspector general (IG) about call wait times for beneficiaries was altered to make it seem as though wait times to speak to representatives had been reduced to under 10 minutes per call.

“An unpublished draft of the report... showed that the inspector general had planned to report another metric—called the ‘total wait time’—to measure the overall time it takes for callers to be connected with an SSA employee,” the Post explained. “According to that draft report, in 2025 total wait time averaged 46 minutes to over two hours.”

The Post added that this “information was deleted from the draft after the agency reviewed it before publication.”

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, responded to the report by saying that “now we know why [President Donald] Trump fired the inspector general at Social Security,” noting that the SSA IG was one of several fired across multiple agencies at the start of Trump’s second term.

Altman then argued that the attack on inspectors general was part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to dismantle government transparency all together.

“Inspectors general are the American peoples’ eyes and ears in these agencies,” said Altman. “The Trump administration is undermining that oversight at every turn. Under this administration, the IG has no ability to conduct independent oversight. There is no meaningful check on the Trump administration’s Social Security sabotage.”

Democratic communications consultant Jesse Lee linked the damage to the SSA documented in the draft IG report to efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which went on a firing spree of federal workers last year.

“So DOGE did a smash and grab at the Social Security Administration, breaking into the most sensitive data, firing phone and in-person case workers,” Lee wrote. “Trump appointee waved around an IG report claiming wait times were fine—after burying the real report saying they were up to two hours.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to downplay the rise in gas prices caused by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, but energy analysts are warning that Americans are in for significant pain at the pump.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson (R-LA) said that the rise in gas prices was a small price to pay for achieving American military objectives in Iran, which he baselessly claimed was about to strike the US if the US didn’t strike first.

Johnson also predicted that the rise in gas prices, which on Wednesday reached an average of $3.58 per gallon in the US, would be short lived.

“Most of this is because the Strait of Hormuz has been closed by the regime down there,” Johnson said. “But it will be reopened, and it will take a couple of weeks, but gas prices will come back down... So this is a temporary blip in an extraordinary trend of a return to American energy dominance.”

Despite Johnson’s rosy assessment, energy experts Trevor Higgins and Akshay Thyagarajan of the Center for American Progress published an analysis on Wednesday explaining why there will be no quick fix for high gas prices.

What’s more, the analysts said that the Iran conflict appeared ready to raise prices on much more than just gasoline.

“Many parts of the US economy are still dependent on fossil fuels, and higher prices for oil and gas increase the prices for gasoline, electricity, fertilizer, food, and more,” they noted. “As long as this war continues—and perhaps for some time thereafter—American households will pay higher prices at the pump, on their utility bills, and on their grocery bills.”

Higgins and Thyagarajan documented how the Iran war’s impact on oil prices was already greater than the impact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had in 2022, and they warned it would only grow more severe the longer the conflict persisted.

One particularly worrisome impact of the Iran war, Higgins and Thyagarajan said, would be putting upward pressure on Americans’ utility bills, which have already been rising significantly over the last year thanks to the enormous energy demands of artificial intelligence data centers.

They pointed to the dependence of US power infrastructure on liquified natural gas (LNG), which generates roughly 43% of electricity in the US, as a serious vulnerability.

“Following the start of Operation Epic Fury, both European and Asian LNG futures prices have already skyrocketed,” they wrote. “As of March 9, they’ve increased by 77% and 51%, respectively, compared to prices before the event. This price increase is much higher than the increase immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If this increase persists, it could raise utility bills further.”

Clayton Seigle, energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Monday that there was very little hope of US gas prices decreasing until Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping.

Seigle said that Iran could wage a relatively cheap military campaign against ships attempting to traverse the strait using a combination of speedboats, naval mines, and drones.

“Their destructive firepower is less than that of missiles,” he wrote, “but sufficient to cause damage and deter commercial shipping.”

Seigle also dismissed any plans by other oil-producing nations to ship their products through alternative trade routes, which he said would do too little to ease the oil supply crisis caused by the strait’s closure.

“ Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar have no bypass capability whatsoever,” he explained. “Their shipments are wholly reliant on Hormuz transit.”

President Donald Trump will soon be hosting a ritzy fundraiser even as many Americans say they’re still struggling to afford weekly groceries.

As flagged by New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer, Trump on Friday is scheduled to have a fundraising dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort where attendees must pay $1 million each for the price of entry.

According to a Times report published last year on the planned fundraiser, the money raised from the dinner “will flow to a super PAC devoted to Mr. Trump, MAGA Inc., which has vacuumed up hundreds of millions of dollars since he was reelected last year.”

The Times noted that it’s unclear what Trump plans to do with the vast sums he’s raising since he is constitutionally ineligible to serve another term, although that hasn’t stopped him from saying he wants to run again in 2028.

The fundraiser is occurring as a new report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is projecting that US consumers will get little relief from food prices in 2026.

According to the USDA Economic Research Service forecast for February 2026, “prices for all food are predicted to increase 3.1%” this year, “with a prediction interval of 0.7 to 5.7%.”

The USDA also projects that seven categories of food are project to see their prices increase faster this year than their 20-year historical average rate of growth: “Beef and veal, other meats, fish and seafood, processed fruits and vegetables, sugar and sweets, cereal and bakery products, and nonalcoholic beverages.”

Leor Tal, campaign director at Unrig Our Economy, said on Friday that Republican policies including Trump’s tariffs and cuts made to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are exacerbating the affordability crisis for US families.

“Families are already struggling to put food on the table and, instead of relief, they’re getting hit with even higher costs because congressional Republicans continue to prioritize billionaires over working Americans,” said Tal. “Thanks to Republican-backed tariffs and devastating SNAP cuts, working Americans are not only facing higher food prices but millions of people are also losing the assistance they rely on to put food on the table.”

An Associated Press poll released last year found that 53% of Americans believe the cost of groceries is a “major source of stress,” which is higher than the percentage of Americans who say the same thing about the cost of housing, healthcare, and childcare.

Anxiety about grocery prices is particularly strong among Americans earning $30,000 or less per year, as nearly two-thirds of them described paying for groceries as a “major source of stress.”

A report produced by the office of Sen. Adam Schiff reveals that federal immigration enforcement agencies amassed a gigantic weapons stockpile during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

In total, the report released by Schiff (D-Calif.) finds that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) committed to spending over $144 million on weapons and ammunition over the last year, a massive increase over these agencies’ spending on weapons in years past.

“In just one year, ICE’s spending commitments on weapons, ammunition, and accessories surged fourfold—an increase of over 360 percent—when compared to ICE’s contracts in 2024,” states the report. “In 2025, CBP’s contracts for weapons, ammunition, and accessories doubled when compared to CBP’s 2024 contract totals.”

The report documents how both agencies have combined to spend tens of millions of dollars purchasing lethal weapons, including “AR-style rifles, pistols, and large quantities of accessories, such as optical sights for firearms and suppressors”; so-called “less-lethal” weapons including “TASERs, pepper sprays, tear gas canisters, and canister launchers”; and assorted kinds of ammunition.

The report adds that “records show that DHS’s procurement of weapons at immense scale is just beginning, as these contract awards contemplate even greater spending moving forward,” which it says should serve “as a stark warning to the American public.”

Schiff’s report concludes with a warning about the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) “growing plans to build a heavily-armed domestic police force,” adding that federal immigration agents’ killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti could only be the first of many tragedies to come.

In an analysis of the Schiff report published Wednesday, the New Republic’s Greg Sargent argued that the Trump administration is trying to launch a domestic “war on terrorism” by bringing the kind of violence the US has deployed overseas back to the homeland.

“In a sense, we’re seeing yet more cancerous growth of the post-September 11 national security bureaucracy, but with a more intensified inward focus,” wrote Sargent, who described ICE and CBP under Trump as a “heavily armed secret police force” in a Wednesday social media post.

Georgetown University law professor Rosa Brooks told Sargent that the dangers posed by ICE and CBP could outlast Trump’s presidency.

“Trump is building up a well-funded, poorly trained paramilitary force that could easily take on a life of its own,” Brooks explained. “Once you have a massive moneymaking machine ginned up, it’s hard to reverse course and turn off the spigot.”

A broad coalition of organizations on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of trying to sabotage a genuine investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti, the intensive care nurse who was fatally shot by federal immigration enforcement agents last month.

In a statement released by the Not Above the Law Coalition, the groups pointed to recent reporting about the FBI denying Minnesota law enforcement officials access to evidence gathered in relation to the Pretti shooting as proof that the administration has no intention of conducting an independent investigation into his death, which has been ruled a homicide by the Hennepin County medical examiner.

“By blocking Minnesota’s investigation and attempting to shield agents from accountability,” said the groups, “the Trump administration is sending a clear message: federal law enforcement can kill with absolute impunity. This move attempts to place federal agents above the law and beyond the reach of justice.”

The groups noted that the administration was breaking with decades of standard practices by not cooperating with local police and prosecutors to investigate Pretti’s death, and they warned it could set a dangerous precedent for future shootings carried out by federal officers.

“We demand immediate action,” they concluded. “Mandatory independent investigations for all federal use of deadly force, recognition of state authority to investigate federal misconduct, federal cooperation with local investigators, and real consequences for constitutional violations. Without accountability, we allow federal forces to operate with impunity and face no consequences for taking American lives.”

Included among the statement’s signatories were the ACLU, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Indivisible, Public Citizen, and the Revolving Door Project.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) said last week that it was continuing its probe into Pretti’s killing, even without the assistance of federal investigators.

“The BCA will present its findings without recommendation to the appropriate prosecutorial authorities for review,” the agency vowed.

In addition to investigating the Pretti killing, the BCA is also conducting probes into the fatal shooting of Minneapolis mother Renee Good and the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty last week similarly said that her office was not getting any help from the federal government in its investigation into the Pretti shooting, though she said her team was continuing to gather evidence and interview witnesses.

Moriarty emphasized that her office, which is currently working with the Minnesota BCA in its investigation, can bring criminal charges against federal immigration officers if it has enough evidence to do so, even without the cooperation of the Trump administration.

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a case that could effectively crush efforts to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the climate crisis.

As reported by the New York Times, the court has agreed to hear arguments related to a petition filed by ExxonMobil and Canadian energy firm Suncor related to a 2018 lawsuit by the city of Boulder, Colorado, that seeks financial damages from the companies for their role in causing global climate change.

The Times report noted that dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed by states and municipalities over the last decade, and they generally seek money from energy firms to help mitigate or repair damage done by extreme weather exacerbated by the climate crisis.

According to the Associated Press, attorneys for the energy companies are petitioning to have the case moved from state courts to federal courts that have in the past dismissed similar complaints.

“The use of state law to address global climate change represents a serious threat to one of our nation’s most critical sectors,” the attorneys claimed.

The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case comes months after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Boulder’s lawsuit could initiate the discovery process and move toward a trial.

In an interview with the Colorado Sun, Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said that the city wasn’t backing down from its efforts make the fossil fuel industry pay for the damage it’s done.

“The oil companies have tried every avenue to delay our climate accountability case or move it to an out-of-state court system,” said Stolzmann. “As everyone continues to face rising costs that put budgets under pressure, we must hold oil companies accountable for the significant harm they’ve caused our communities.”

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said that the merits of the Boulder lawsuit are clear, regardless of the Supreme Court’s intervention.

“Big Oil’s climate lies are the most consequential and harmful corporate deception campaign in history,” Wiles said, “and the communities paying the price for that deception deserve to put these companies on trial. Exxon’s desperation to escape accountability does not change the evidence of their wrongdoing or the law that lower courts agree is on Boulder’s side.”

Alyssa Johl, vice president of legal and general counsel at the Center for Climate Integrity, said the Supreme Court should simply affirm lower court rulings stating that “communities like Boulder have the right to seek accountability in their state courts when corporations have knowingly caused local harms.”

Some Americans on Thursday found themselves expressing envy after seeing elites in both the United Kingdom and South Korea face legal consequences for their actions.

First, former Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of inciting an insurrection with his failed bid in 2024 to seize power by declaring martial law.

According to The Guardian, the court justified sending the 65-year-old Yoon to jail for the rest of his life by noting his lack of contrition for his actions, which were described by Judge Jee Kui-youn as sending the military to the national assembly “to blockade the assembly hall and arrest key figures, including the assembly speaker and party leaders, thereby preventing lawmakers from gathering to deliberate or vote.”

In the UK, law enforcement officials arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the one-time Duke of York, amid scrutiny over his ties to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The New York Times reported that the former prince was taken into custody over “suspicions of misconduct in public office after accusations that he shared confidential information with Mr. Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy.”

After seeing legal accountability for foreign elites, American politicians and commentators called for the same to happen in the US.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who along with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) forced the release of the Epstein files last year, said it was time for the US Department of Justice to prosecute powerful people implicated in Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls.

“Prince Andrew was just arrested,” wrote Massie. “This was the metric I established for success of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that Ro Khanna and I got passed. Now we need JUSTICE in the United States. It’s time for Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to act!”

Massie’s argument was echoed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who posted a link to news about the Mountbatten-Windsor arrest on social media and commented, “This is exactly the kind of accountability we need from the Department of Justice.”

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) argued the Mountbatten-Windsor arrest showed that “if a prince can be held accountable, so can a president.”

President Donald Trump, who is featured prominently in the Epstein files, was indicted in 2023 on charges related to his attempts to illegally remain in power after losing the 2020 election, but that case was dropped after Trump triumphed in the 2024 presidential election.

MS NOW host Joe Scarborough said the Mountbatten-Windsor arrest showed that European countries at least still have a sense of shame that is currently absent in the US.

“At least they have shame in Europe if somebody was hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, there are consequences,” he fumed. “No consequences here!”

CNN commentator Bakari Sellers argued that the actions taken in Korea and the UK showed how far the US has fallen in upholding the rule of law.

“Amazing how many other countries get it right,” he observed. “Watching ex-South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of insurrection and Prince Andrew being arrested for his involvement with Epstein. We counting to ‘preach’ western values but are a laughing stock around the world.”

Journalist Dave Levitan also described the lack of accountability for Trump and other powerful people implicated in the Epstein scandal as a national embarrassment.

“Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by the British monarchy is an incredible ‘America at 250!’ achievement,” he wrote.

Writer Julian Sanchez pointed the finger at the US Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling that granted presidents total immunity for official acts related to the office as poisonous to the rule of law.

“So SCOTUS, with its fabricated-out-of-thin-air immunity doctrine,” he wrote, “has actually made American presidents less accountable than LITERAL royalty.”

A large group of agriculture experts warned that US farms are taking a financial beating thanks to President Donald Trump’s global trade war.

In a letter sent to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on Tuesday, the experts warned of a potential “widespread collapse of American agriculture and our rural communities” caused in no small part by Trump administration policies.

The letter’s signatories—which include former leaders of American agricultural commodity and biofuels associations, farm leaders, and former USDA officials—pointed to Trump’s tariffs on imported goods and his mass deportation policies as particularly harmful.

“It is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction,” the letter states, “have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical [agricultural] research and staffing.”

The letter goes on to describe Trump’s tariffs as “indiscriminate and haphazard,” noting they “have not revitalized American manufacturing and have significantly damaged American farm economy.”

The tariffs have also hurt farmers’ access to overseas markets, the letter continues, as foreign nations have reacted with retaliatory tariffs.

“Consider the impact of the China trade war on soybeans alone,” the letter says. “In 2018, when the China tariffs were initially imposed, whole US soybean exports represented 47% of the world market. Today, whole US soybeans represent just 24.4%—a 50% reduction in market share. Meanwhile, Brazil’s share of the world export market grew by more than 20%.”

When it comes to the administration’s immigration policies, the letter says that “mass deportations, removal of protected status, and failure to reform the H-2A visa program is wreaking havoc with dairy, fruit and produce, and meat processing.”

“Those disruptions are causing food to go to waste and driving up food costs for consumers,” the letter adds. “These disruptions are also financially squeezing food and agriculture businesses and sowing the seeds of division in rural communities. Farmers need these workers.”

The letter offers several policy proposals that the administration and Congress could take to help US farmers, including ending tariffs on farm inputs, repealing tariffs that have blocked access to overseas markets, passing reform to the H-2A visa program to help ensure farmers have sufficient workers, and extending trade agreements with Mexico and Canada for the next 16 years.

The letter also urges Congress to “convene meetings with farmers to discuss challenges that they are facing gather input on additional policy solutions and build momentum to address the farm crisis.”

One of the letter’s signatories, former National Corn Growers Association chief executive Jon Doggett, told the New York Times on Tuesday that he felt he had to speak out because “we’re not having those conversations” about the struggles facing US farmers “in an open and meaningful way.”

The agriculture experts who signed the letter aren’t alone in their concerns about US farmers’ financial condition, as Reuters reported that US Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said during a Tuesday conference call that he was aware that US farmers are “losing money, lots of money.”

After a US Border Patrol Agent shot two Venezuelan immigrants in Portland, Oregon, in January, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that the two victims were “vicious Tren de Aragua gang members” who “weaponized their vehicle” against federal agents, who had no choice but to open fire in self-defense.

However, court records obtained by the Guardian reveal that a Department of Justice prosecutor subsequently told a judge the government was “not suggesting” that one of the victims, Luis Niño-Moncada, was a gang member.

The Guardian also obtained an FBI affidavit contradicting DHS claims about the second victim, Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, being “involved” in a shooting in Portland last year, when in reality she was a “reported victim of sexual assault and robbery.”

Attorneys representing Niño-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras, who both survived the shooting and were subsequently hospitalized, told the Guardian that neither of them have any prior criminal convictions.

Legal experts who spoke with the Guardian about the shooting said it appeared that DHS was waging a “smear campaign” against the victims.

Sergio Perez, a civil rights lawyer and former US prosecutor, noted in an interview that prosecutors filed criminal charges against Niño-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras just two days after they were shot, even before it had obtained crucial video evidence of the incident.

“This government needs to go back to the practice of slow and thorough investigations,” he told the Guardian, “rather than what we consistently see in immigration enforcement activities—which is a rush to smear individuals.”

Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor, told the Guardian that the court records obtained by the paper don’t show DOJ presenting any of the usual evidence that prosecutors use to establish defendants’ alleged gang membership.

“What’s interesting about the filings is that you don’t see evidence of gang association,” said Palmer. “It just feels like a dirtying up of the defendant.”

DHS in recent months has made a number of claims about people who have been shot or killed by federal immigration officers that have not held up to scrutiny.

Most recently, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that slain Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” intent on inflicting “maximum damage” on federal agents, when video clearly showed that Pretti was swarmed by multiple federal agents and was disarmed before two agents opened fire and killed him.

Noem also openly lied about the circumstances and actions that resulted in the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent weeks earlier.

In November, federal prosecutors abruptly dropped charges against Marimar Martinez, a woman who was shot multiple times by a US Border Patrol agent in October in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.

In the indictment filed against Martinez, prosecutors said that the Border Patrol agent who shot her had been acting in self-defense, and that he had only opened fire after Martinez’s car collided with his vehicle.

However, uncovered text messages showed the Border Patrol agent apparently bragging about shooting Martinez, as he boasted that he “fired five rounds and she had seven holes” in a message sent to fellow agents.

An attorney representing Martinez also claimed that he had seen body camera footage that directly undermined DHS claims about how the shooting unfolded.

No explanation was provided for why charges against Martinez were dropped.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is warning that the Trump administration has crossed a “terrifying line” with its use of federal immigration enforcement agents to brutalize and abduct people in his city.

In an interview with the New York Times published Saturday, Frey described operations that have taken place in his city as “marauding gangs of guys just walking down the street indiscriminately picking people up,” likening it to a military “invasion.”

During the interview, Frey was asked what he made of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent offer to withdraw immigration enforcement forces from his city if Minnesota handed over its voter registration records to the federal government.

“That is wildly unconstitutional,” Frey replied. “We should all be standing up and saying that’s not OK. Literally, listen to what they’re saying. Active threats like, Turn over the voter rolls or else, or we will continue to do what we’re doing. That’s something you can do in America now.”

Frey was also asked about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s comments from earlier in the week where he likened the administration’s invasion of Minneapolis to the first battle that took place during the US Civil War in Fort Sumter.

“I don’t think he’s saying that the Civil War is going to happen,” said Frey. “I think what he’s saying is that a significant and terrifying line is being crossed. And I would agree with that.”

As Frey issued warnings about the federal government’s actions in Minneapolis, more horror stories have emerged involving US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota.

The Associated Press reported on Saturday that staff at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis have been raising red flags over ICE agents’ claims about Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, a Mexican immigrant whom they treated after he suffered a shattered skull earlier this month.

ICE agents who brought Castañeda Mondragón to the hospital told staffers that he had injured himself after he “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall” while trying to escape their custody.

Nurses who treated Castañeda Mondragón, however, said that there is no way that running headfirst into a wall could produce the sheer number of skull fractures he suffered, let alone the internal bleeding found throughout his brain.

“It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about,” one nurse at the hospital told the Associated Press. “There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.”

According to a Saturday report in the New York Times, concern over ICE’s brutality has grown to such an extent that many Minnesota residents, including both documented immigrants and US citizens, have started wearing passports around their necks to avoid being potentially targeted.

Joua Tsu Thao, a 75-year-old US citizen who came to the country after aiding the American military during the Vietnam War, said the aggressive actions of immigration officers have left him with little choice but to display his passport whenever he walks outside his house.

“We need to be ready before they point a gun to us,” Thao explained to the Times.

CNN on Friday reported that ICE has been rounding up refugees living in Minnesota who were allowed to enter the US after undergoing “a rigorous, years-long vetting process,” and sending them to a facility in Texas where they are being prepared for deportation.

Lawyers representing the abducted refugees told CNN that their clients have been “forced to recount painful asylum claims with limited or no contact with family members or attorneys.”

Some of the refugees taken to Texas have been released from custody. But instead of being flown back home, they were released in Texas “without money, identification, or phones,” CNN reported.

Laurie Ball Cooper, vice president for US legal programs at the International Refugee Assistance Project, told CNN that government agents abducting refugees who had previously been allowed into the US is part of “a campaign of terror” that “is designed to scare people.”

Critics have weighed in on Amazon MGM Studios’ documentary about first lady Melania Trump, and their verdicts are overwhelmingly negative.

According to review aggregation website Metacritic, Melania—which Amazon paid $40 million to acquire and $35 million to market—so far has received a collective score of just 6 out of 100 from critics, which indicates “overwhelming dislike.”

Similarly, Melania scores a mere 6% on Rotten Tomatoes’ “Tomameter,” indicating that 94% of reviews for the movie so far have been negative.

One particularly brutal review came from Nick Hilton, film critic for the Independent, who said that the first lady came off in the film as “a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness” who leads a “vulgar, gilded lifestyle.”

Hilton added that the film is so terrible that it fails even at being effective propaganda and is likely to be remembered as “a striking artifact... of a time when Americans willingly subordinated themselves to a political and economic oligopoly.”

The Guardian’s Xan Brooks delivered a similarly scathing assessment, declaring the film “dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing.”

“It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality,” Brooks elaborated. “I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.”

Donald Clarke of the Irish Times also discussed the film’s failure as a piece of propaganda, and he compared it unfavorably to the work of Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.

“Melania... appears keener on inducing narcolepsy in its viewers than energizing them into massed marching,” he wrote. “Triumph of the Dull, perhaps.”

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman argued that the Melania documentary is utterly devoid of anything approaching dramatic stakes, which results in the film suffering from “staggering inertia.”

“Mostly it’s inert,” Gleiberman wrote of the film. “It feels like it’s been stitched together out of the most innocuous outtakes from a reality show. There’s no drama to it. It should have been called ‘Day of the Living Tradwife.’”

Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter found that the movie mostly exposes Melania Trump is an empty vessel without a single original thought or insight, instead deploying “an endless number of inspirational phrases seemingly cribbed from self-help books.”

Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast described Melania as “an unbelievable abomination of filmmaking” that reaches “a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review.”

“It’s so expected,” Fallon added, “and utterly pointless.”

President Donald Trump in recent weeks has vowed to make living in the US more affordable, as polls have consistently shown voters are giving him low marks on both his handling of the economy and inflation.

However, Trump undercut this pledge during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday in which he said he wanted—despite a nationwide housing crisis—to actively make housing even more expensive than it is today.

“Existing housing, people that own their home, we’re going to keep them wealthy, we’re going to keep those prices up,” Trump said. “We’re not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn’t work very hard can buy a home.”

Trump added that his administration wanted to “make it easier to buy” a house by lowering interest rates, but then reiterated that he wanted to make houses themselves more expensive.

“There’s so much talk of, ‘Oh, we’re going to drive housing prices down,’” Trump said. “I don’t want to drive housing prices down, I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen.”

The implications of the president’s remarks were obvious to those concerned about the nation’s affordable housing crisis and the struggle of working people trying to get by.

As Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director for the Campaign for New York Health, put it: “54% of Americans struggle to afford housing, and over 770,000 Americans are homeless—and Trump doesn’t think those numbers are high enough.”

A Fox News poll released on Wednesday found that 54% of Americans think the US is worse off now than it was a year ago, while just 31% say the country is in better shape. Just 25% of voters surveyed said they are better off now than they were a year ago, and more than 40% said that Trump’s economic policies have personally hurt them.

Given Trump’s already low numbers on economic performance, many observers were quick to ridicule him for his pledge to make existing houses less affordable for prospective buyers.

“Hello Donald this is your political strategist speaking,” George Pearkes, global macro strategist for Bespoke Investment Group, sarcastically wrote. “I am advising you today to please keep saying this stuff.”

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) argued that Trump’s views on housing prices put him well out of touch with most US voters.

“Trump only sees the world as a rich developer,” she wrote in a social media post. “He has never, and will never, care about creating affordable homeownership for working and middle class Americans.”

Vox writer Eric Levitz posted a not-so-subtle dig at Trump for straying so easily off message.

Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris, meanwhile, said that Trump’s inability to stay on message was entirely predictable given his notorious unpredictability.

“Trump launched an affordability-focused midterm campaign for Republicans this week, traveling to Iowa to give a speech about how good his presidency has been for the cost of living,” he wrote. “That’s going about as well as you’d think. Here POTUS is saying he is going to keep housing prices high.”