Julia Conley, Common Dreams

More than two dozen Democratic state attorneys general on Tuesday sued the Trump administration for withholding emergency food assistance that could help prevent 42 million people from going hungry next month, arguing that the US Department of Agriculture is legally obligated to ensure federal nutrition aid gets to people who rely on it.

With the US government shut down since Oct. 1, the USDA said weeks ago that it could reprogram an emergency reserve held by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to ensure people don’t lose their benefits on Nov. 1. But last Friday a memo from the department said the emergency funds were to be used during disasters such as hurricanes and floods, and were “not legally available” for families set to lose their benefits due to the shutdown.

Officials from New York, Nevada, Minnesota, and other Democratic-led states are asking the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to rule by Oct. 31, on a motion to force the Trump administration to use the contingency fund to send at least partial payments to SNAP beneficiaries.

About $5 billion-$6 billion is estimated to be in the fund; before the shutdown, about $8 billion in benefits went out to families per month.

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general also argued that the USDA could use Section 32 funds, as it did to provide funding for the Women, Infants, and Children program, to continue funding SNAP in November.

The shutdown began when Democrats in Congress refused to vote with the Republican Party on a continuing resolution that would have allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire at the end of the year, significantly raising health insurance premiums for millions of people. Democrats also want to undo some recent GOP cuts to Medicaid.

The Trump administration has continued to place blame for the shutdown on the Democrats, whom President Donald Trump refused to negotiate with over healthcare before government funding was cut off at the end of September.

The USDA website on Tuesday amplified misinformation Republicans have spread, accusing Democrats of “hold[ing] out healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures” and claiming that “the well has run dry” for SNAP despite the emergency fund.

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson accused the USDA of “playing an illegal game of shutdown politics” that could result in suffering for nearly 600,000 children in his state.

“They have emergency money to help feed children during this shutdown, and they’re refusing to spend it,” said Jackson. “I warned them last week that I would take them to court if they tried to hurt our kids, and today that’s what we’re doing.”

Also on Tuesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the Republican Party will not bring a standalone bill to fund expiring SNAP benefits to the floor for a vote, saying, “The pain register is about to hit 10,” and again blaming Democrats for the impending food assistance cliff.

Economist Paul Krugman noted that “the Republican majority in the Senate could maintain aid by waiving the filibuster on this issue.”

“They have done this on other issues—for example, to roll back California’s electric vehicle standard,” he wrote. “But for today’s Republican Party, blocking green energy is more important than keeping 40 million Americans from going hungry.”

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford accused the Trump administration of making a “deliberate, cruel, and extraordinarily harmful decision” to allow tens of thousands of people to go hungry.

“Contingency funds exist for this exact scenario, yet the USDA has abdicated its responsibility to Nevadans and refused to fund SNAP benefits,” said Ford. “I understand the stress of not knowing where you’re next meal is coming from, because I’ve lived it. I don’t wish that stress on any Nevadan, and I’ll fight to be sure nobody in our state goes hungry.”

Retired US Col. Steve Gabavics went public Monday with an account he had previously only spoken about anonymously—the story of his investigation into an Israeli soldier’s killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and the unsuccessful attempts he made to ensure the US State Department would accurately report his findings: that Abu Akleh was intentionally shot.

Gabavics previously discussed his experience investigating Abu Akleh’s killing just days after it happened in a documentary produced by Zeteo News, but he wasn’t named in the film. On Monday, he came forward publicly for the first time in an interview with the New York Times to discuss the case he said has “bothered [him] the most” of any he investigated during his 30-year military career.

In the days after Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head while reporting on an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid on a refugee camp in Jenin in the West Bank in May 2022, Gabavics was assigned to lead an investigation into the killing by the Office of the United States Security Coordinator, where he was chief of staff. The State Department office coordinates with Palestinian and Israeli security officials and was ordered by the Biden administration to review Abu Akleh’s killing.

He traveled to Jenin with three other people from the office to investigate the shooting and concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Israeli soldier who shot Abu Akleh must have known she was a journalist—and therefore required under international law to be protected from military attacks while reporting on a conflict.

They did not conclude that the soldier was specifically or deliberately targeting Abu Akleh, but they determined that:

• Soldiers were aware of journalists in the area due to records of Israeli military radio traffic on the morning before the shooting;
• There had been no gunfire coming from the journalists’ direction that might provoke the Israeli soldiers to shoot in self-defense;
• There was an Israeli military vehicle stationed down the road from Abu Akleh, from which a sniper would have been able to see the journalists clearly; and
• When Gabavics visited the scene of the shooting hours after it occurred, his colleagues wore blue vests similar to Abu Akleh’s navy-blue "Press" vest and stood where she was when she was killed while Gabavics stood where the shooter's vehicle had been; they were easily visible to Gabavics.

Gabavics told the Times that the claim that the shooting was unintentional, ultimately included in the State Department’s report, was “absurd.”

The State Department’s account of an accidental killing would mean that the “individual popped out of the truck, just was randomly shooting, and happened to have really well-aimed shots and never looked down the scope,” said Gabavics. “Which wouldn’t have happened.”

Gabavics explained the circumstances that led to the State Department announcing in July 2022 that Abu Akleh had been unintentionally killed: His superior, Lt. Gen. Michael R. Fenzel, who led the Office of the Security Coordinator at the time, disagreed with his assessment and repeatedly refused to publish a report that explained Gabavics’ findings accurately.

As Gabavics told Mehdi Hasan at Zeteo News on Monday, Fenzel told Gabavics that he had spoken to an Israeli commander, who called the shooting an accident “that was a matter of tragic circumstances.”

“So the US general takes the word of a foreign general over the word of his own officer, who he sent to investigate,” said Hasan.

Gabavics also told the Times that Fenzel threatened to fire him as the two disagreed about what the State Department report should say. He included language saying the shooting was intentional in a draft report several times, but Fenzel repeatedly deleted his additions.

He said he and the other three investigators were “flabbergasted that this is what they put out.”

Fenzel told the Times in a statement that he stands by “the integrity of our work and [remains] confident that we reached the right conclusions.”

Officials who spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity said Fenzel’s office likely aimed to “preserve its working relationship with the Israeli military.”

But Gabavics told the Times that the outcome of his investigation “continued to be on my conscience nonstop,” and said he continued to clash with Fenzel over the US government’s report on Abu Akleh’s death until he retired in January.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) applauded Gabavics for “bravely coming forward and confirming what was obvious to everyone: An Israeli sniper deliberately murdered an American journalist and the Biden administration covered it up.”

“We call on President [Donald] Trump to investigate Lt. Gen. Michael R. Fenzel and any other officials who were allegedly involved in the cover-up of Shireen Abu Akleh’s assassination,” the group said.

CAIR urged the State Department and FBI to “pursue a real investigation” into Abu Akleh’s killing. The group condemned President Joe Biden and his top foreign affairs officials, including former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and former National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk for “enabling the Israeli government’s abuses.”

“These individuals must never again serve our government,” said CAIR, “and should be fired from the prestigious roles they have secured in academia since leaving office.”

A former Cook County prosecutor said he had collected a tear gas canister from his own front lawn in a residential Chicago neighborhood and submitted it to a law firm that is preparing a lawsuit over immigration officers’ persistent use of tear gas against residents who object to their raids across the city—including in Old Irving Park this past weekend, where parents and children were getting ready for a Halloween parade when agents wreaked havoc on the neighborhood.

The Chicago Tribune reported that former prosecutor Brian Kolp had been watching news coverage Saturday morning of a temporary restraining order handed down by US District Court Judge Sara Ellis earlier this month barring federal agents from using riot control weapons like tear gas against protesters who do not pose an immediate harm to officers’ safety, when he realized federal agents were on his street in Old Irving Park.

“I could see two fully uniformed agents in military fatigues literally tackling a guy right here in my front lawn,” Kolp told CBS News.

The man the agents detained, Luis Villegas, had been working at a house in the neighborhood, and his brother told reporters he was an undocumented immigrant who came to the US with his family at the age of four.

Neighbors ran out of their houses and filmed and heckled the agents, Block Club Chicago reported, with some shouting, “Get off of him!” Another appeared to call one of the officers a “f---ing Nazi.”

The outlet reported that agents got out of their vehicles moments later, “put on their gas masks, and attacked at least two different people.”

A person on a rapid response team that warns locals when Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents are in the area told Block Club Chicago that a 67-year-old woman was “knocked to the ground” by masked officers. She and a 70-year-old man were detained, and Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin claimed they were “arrested for assaulting and impeding a federal officer.”

McLaughlin also claimed Villegas was arrested for a previous assault charge, but provided no evidence of his criminal background.

In nearby Avondale, Chicago Tribune reporter Laura N. Rodríguez Presa said another woman was pushed to the ground by an ICE or Customs and Border Protection agent when she approached their vehicle during another anti-immigration operation.

“This appears to be the new normal in Chicago,” said Rodríguez Presa.

In Old Irving Park, the “new normal” for residents on Saturday included federal agents deploying tear gas as parents and costumed children were leaving their homes on their way to a neighborhood Halloween parade.

Resident James Hotchkiss told Block Club Chicago that he was leaving his house with his wife and children at 9:45 a.m. for the parade when he heard whistles ringing out in the neighborhood—a sound Chicagoans have come to recognize as a warning that ICE is nearby.

“At that point, I saw a man running towards me followed by two to three officers chasing after him. They tackled him onto a neighbor’s front yard,” he said.

About 10 minutes later, Hotchkiss saw smoke in the air.

“I took my glasses off because my eyes were burning,” he said. “I saw someone pour water on a gas canister that appeared to be on fire.”

Heather Cherone, a senior reporter at WTTW, said the attack on Old Irving Park marked the “third straight day that federal agents have deployed tear gas against Chicagoans and the seventh time in 22 days,” despite the court order.

Kolp told Fox 32 that he “didn’t see anybody with a weapon” that would have justified the agents’ use of force.

“So you had folks who were literally out on the street taking their kids to this Halloween parade when this happened,” he said. “I didn’t see anybody make physical contact with these agents. I didn’t see anybody do anything that justified, for instance, taking my 70-year-old neighbor to the ground.”

The agents left the neighborhood after about 30 minutes, and the Halloween parade proceeded—but with many families opting to stay home.

Kolp told CBS News he retrieved a tear gas canister from his yard.

“I knew that piece of evidence would be critical for the judge to understand what the facts are,” he said.

Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino is due in court on Tuesday, Fox 32 reported, to answer questions about agents’ continued use of tear gas against residentsin violation of Ellis’ order.

“I was pretty upset to be honest with you,” Kolp told the outlet. “I am an attorney. I used to work with and in law enforcement, and watching this happen in my front yard was just not something that I ever thought was gonna come to my front door. But you know, here we are.”

Ten former leaders of Caribbean nations on Friday called on the current governments across the region to unite in a diplomatic effort to counter President Donald Trump’s unprovoked escalation, in which the US has struck at least 10 vessels in less than two months, claiming without evidence that the Trump administration is fighting “narco-terrorists” from Venezuela.

Former prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, and St. Lucia signed a joint statement titled “Caribbean Space: A Zone of Peace on Land, Sea and Airspace Where the Rule of Law Prevails,” and called on current leaders to recall the 1972 regional meeting at Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago.

At the summit, noted the St. Vincent Times, “peace was enshrined as the guiding principle of Caribbean development.”

The former leaders wrote that “from this platform our region has always maintained that international law and conventions not war and military might must prevail in finding solutions to global challenges.”

“We are impelled to urge a pullback from military buildup to avoid any diminution of peace, stability, and development within our regional space,” the statement reads. “Our region must never become a pawn in the rivalries of others.”

They called on Caribbean leaders to avoid hosting foreign military assets.

“Our cooperation with international partners must never override our collective sovereignty or the principles of international law.”

“The gravity of the present signals demands that we use all existing channels for dialogue to perpetuate a Zone of Peace,” the leaders said. “We fully support our current heads of government in assisting the peaceful resolution of all conflicts and disputes.”

“We must not endanger our citizens in any crossfire, nor risk economic and human loss from wars that are not ours,” they added.

They noted that Caribbean nations have Shiprider Agreements with the US to “ensure that illicit drug traffickers could be tracked, pursued, searched, and lawfully apprehended without extrajudicial killing and the destruction of that which could provide conclusive evidence of criminal operation.”

“Our cooperation with international partners must never override our collective sovereignty or the principles of international law,” they wrote.

Since early September, the Trump administration has killed at least 43 people by striking vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific. Officials have claimed the boats have been operated by drug traffickers with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and other groups, but have provided no evidence for the claims. Fentanyl, which kills thousands of people per year in the US from overdoses, is not trafficked out of Venezuela, according to US and international drug and crime agencies.

“Although the United States Coast Guard interdicts staggering quantities of illegal drugs in the Caribbean each year, it does not encounter fentanyl on the high seas,” wrote Nick Miroff at The Atlantic. “South American cocaine and marijuana account for the overwhelming majority of maritime seizures, according to Coast Guard data, and there isn’t a single instance of a fentanyl seizure—let alone ‘bags’ of the drug—in the agency’s press releases.”

On Friday, the Pentagon revealed that it had deployed the USS Gerald Ford, an aircraft carrier, to the southern Caribbean Sea to “disrupt narcotics trafficking.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused Trump of seeking regime change in his country, and the former officials urged regional leaders to reject any such efforts.

“We have remained steadfast in our repudiation of external intervention to effect regime change,” they wrote. “Military action in our maritime waters must always be governed by international law—not might.”

Calling the North Carolina Republican Party’s new congressional district map “surgical racism with surgical precision,” Bishop William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach was in Raleigh Thursday, announcing a lawsuit challenging the redistricting effort—pledging that the state’s voters will “challenge gerrymandering in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box.”

“This is a direct attack on the state’s Black Belt district and marginalized communities,” said Barber at a news conference announcing the legal challenge, a day after the state House of Representatives approved the new map in a party-line vote.

The new map, which was passed by the state Senate earlier this week and cannot be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein under state law, will likely give the GOP an additional seat in the US House after the 2026 midterm elections.

President Donald Trump has called for mid-decade redistricting efforts by the GOP in states including Missouri and Texas, as well as North Carolina, with state Republicans heeding his demands.

North Carolina’s new map will likely give Republicans 11 of the state’s 14 districts by moving some Black voters out of the 1st District and into the 3rd District. Had the new map been in place in 2024, Trump would likely have won 55% of the vote in the new 1st District in 2024, up from the 51% he won.

Barber denounced the redistricting efforts across the country as “political robbery” by a party that wants “to rob people of their rights through this racially based gerrymandering... so that they can give power or keep power in the US Congress to engage in political violence,” including by cutting healthcare and blocking the passage of living wages.

“We’ve seen this pattern before—the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish, and deny,” said Barber. “But the truth is simple: When you steal people’s representation, you steal their healthcare, their wages, and their future. That’s why we will fight back... to make clear that in North Carolina, and across America, the people’s will cannot be gerrymandered out of existence.”

Barber said Republicans in the state Legislature are “gambling” to win another seat, instead of trying to win over voters.

“They’re saying, ‘Let’s move this county over here, let’s move this county over here,’ he said at the press conference. ”Black voters in Congressional District 1 make up approximately 40% of the population, and there’s a growing Latino population that makes up 7%... Black communities, Latino communities, and rural, working-class, poor white voters, if the districts are fair, have the power to build a fusion electorate that can overcome the greedy oligarchs’ will to control elections in our state.“

Along with filing a legal action against state lawmakers to challenge the legality of the map, Barber said Repairers of the Breach will hold a ”Mass Moral Fusion Meeting“ and public hearing on November 2.

”If they won’t hold public hearings, we will,“ said Barber. ”This is our Edmund Pettus Bridge moment... Black, white, and brown together—because our democracy is not for sale.“

The $170 billion in new funding for immigration enforcement operations that the Republican Party included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year led some to warn that the Trump administration was ramping up spending at anti-immigration agencies not just to fund its attacks on migrants, but to deploy federal forces against anyone it wanted to across U.S. communities.

New reporting on Monday detailed just how much U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has spent on weaponry since President Donald Trump took office—weapons that have been purchased as the administration has turned federal agents on US cities such as Chicago and Portland, illustrating how the president is treating increasingly armed ICE officers as his “private military,” as one progressive critic said.

As images spread online of immigration agents deploying pepper spray and tear gas at nonviolent protesters, Judd Legum at Popular Information recently delved into government contracting records from the Federal Procurement Data System and found that ICE has increased its spending on “small arms, ordnance, and ordnance accessories manufacturing” by 700% this year compared to 2024 numbers.

The agency spent $71,515,762 on small arms from January 20—the day Trump began his second term—through October 18.

The number dwarfs ICE’s spending during the first Trump term, during which the agency spent about $8.4 billion annually on small arms, and during President Joe Biden’s administration.

The type of weaponry purchased by ICE also raised alarm Monday, with Legum reporting that while most of the agency’s spending was on guns and armor, “there have also been significant purchases of chemical weapons and ‘guided missile warheads and explosive components.’”

“If the immigration enforcement apparatus of the United States were its own national military, it would be the 13th most heavily funded in the world. This puts it higher than the national militaries of Poland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Turkey, and Spain—and just below Israel.”

The reporting comes as ICE and other immigration agencies continue to deploy armed, masked agents in major Democratic-leaning US cities, where officers have been filmed and photographed pointing a weapon at a protester; firing a pepper ball at a pastor, and pointing a firearm at bystanders who saw one agent arresting a man.

A CBS reporter in Chicago also accused an ICE officer of firing a pepper ball at her vehicle, causing the chemical to “engulf the inside of her truck.”

Sally Duval, a Texas state House candidate in last year’s election, said she was “curious to know why ICE needs ‘guided missile warheads.’”

The report came days after the Trump administration used the US military for what Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom called “a profoundly absurd show of force that could put Californians directly in harm’s way,” when the Marines fired 155-millimeter artillery shells over a section of the busy Interstate 5 freeway to celebrate the military branch’s 250th anniversary.

Newsom accused Trump of “using our military to intimidate people [he disagrees] with” and called the exercise “reckless.”

Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, said Legum’s reporting on Monday showed that “ICE was always going to be Trump’s private military to deploy domestically against Americans.”

Legum’s analysis—which likely understated total spending on weapons by Trump’s deportation forces, as it did not include spending by other anti-immigration agencies—followed a report on ICE’s recent funding increase by In These Times.

With the $170 billion included in the OBBBA, reported the outlet, “if the immigration enforcement apparatus of the United States were its own national military, it would be the 13th most heavily funded in the world. This puts it higher than the national militaries of Poland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Turkey, and Spain—and just below Israel.”

The budget, Brandon Lee of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights told In These Times, “shows the misplaced priorities of this administration, where they are cutting healthcare and cutting vital programs for people across the country, and putting all of this money into a domestic terrible force.”

“And it shows the cruelty,” said Lee, “that the Trump administration intends to enact on all people in the United States.”

With President Donald Trump floating potential military action within Venezuela and authorizing operations by the Central Intelligence Agency after launching several deadly strikes on boats near the South American country, three lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Friday said they would force a new vote on blocking the White House from carrying out an attack there.

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) last week introduced a measure to rein in Trump’s bombing of boats in the Caribbean, which the White House has claimed are being used to traffic drugs into the US and present an imminent threat.

The measure failed, with one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) joining most of the GOP in opposing it and two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), supporting it.

Kaine and Schiff on Friday were reportedly hoping that a new bipartisan measure, introduced with Paul, would garner more support from the Republicans.

They said they would force a vote on a war powers resolution to block the use of force by US troops “within or against” Venezuela unless it was “explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.”

The 1973 War Powers Act requires Congress to consider and vote on resolutions regarding a president’s power to enter an armed conflict without congressional authorization.

“Congress has not authorized military force against Venezuela. And we must assert our authority to stop the United States from being dragged—intentionally or accidentally—into full-fledged war in South America,” said Schiff.

“Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere.”

The lawmakers announced the resolution as it was reported that two survivors of the military’s most recent drone strike on a boat have been detained by US forces, with legal experts questioning whether they are prisoners or war or criminal suspects.

The White House has insisted it is acting within its rights to defend US security by striking boats it believes are carrying drugs—even as details have emerged calling into doubt the allegations that the vessels pose a threat.

Venezuela is not a significant source of drugs that are trafficked into the US—a fact that Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed when a reporter brought it up soon after the military began bombing boats, at least six of which have been struck so far. At least 27 people have been killed, and the grieving family of one victim spoke out Thursday and said they had not been involved in drug trafficking.

Even if the vessels were carrying illegal substances, legal experts and critics in Congress have stressed in recent weeks that they should be dealt with, as in the past, by federal law enforcement agencies, as Congress has not authorized military action against Venezuela or drug cartels.

“The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote,” said Paul. “We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war.”

Kaine told reporters on Thursday that Congress’s knowledge of the legal rationale for the boat strikes amounts to “a complete black hole.”

Meanwhile, Trump has suggested this week he could further escalate attacks on Venezuela, saying the Caribbean Sea is “very well under control”—even though Vice President JD Vance has joked that the US could accidentally strike fishing boats in its operations there.

“We are certainly looking at land now,” Trump said Wednesday.

Kaine said he was “extremely troubled that the Trump administration is considering launching illegal military strikes inside Venezuela without a specific authorization by Congress.”

“Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere,” said Kaine. “If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea, they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an authorization for use of military force.”

“I urge every senator to join us in stopping this administration from dragging our country into an unauthorized and escalating military conflict,” said the senator.

The New York Times reported that Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) could potentially join the effort to pass the war powers resolution after voting against last week’s measure, which he said was too broad.

“I am highly concerned,” Young said after the vote last week, “about the legality of recent strikes in the Caribbean and the trajectory of military operations without congressional approval or debate and the support of the American people.”

After weeks of speculation and reports that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was privately calling on Maine Gov. Janet Mills to enter the race to unseat longtime Republican lawmaker Susan Collins—despite considerable energy surrounding the candidacy of progressive veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner—Mills announced her primary run Tuesday.

Mills highlighted her public sparring with President Donald Trump earlier this year and positioned her run as one that would focus on standing up to “bullies” like Trump, who threatened to cut off Maine’s federal funding if it allowed transgender youths to play on team sports that correspond with their identities.

She also pledged to “fight back” against efforts by Trump and Republicans in Congress—including Collins, who has represented Maine since 1997—to slash healthcare for millions of Americans while handing out tax cuts to corporations and the richest Americans.

“This election is going to be a simple choice: Is Maine going to bow down, or stand up?” said Mills.

But before Mainers decide whether to stick with Collins or unseat her in favor of a Democratic senator, they are set to choose the Democratic nominee next June—and despite being a political novice, Platner has generated excitement across the state since announcing his candidacy in August.

Platner has centered his campaign on naming “the enemy” shared by Mainers and Americans from all walks of life: not immigrants, transgender people, or other frequent targets of the Trump administration, but the oligarchy. He’s also been unapologetically outspoken in his condemnation of the US-backed Israeli assault on Gaza and over the weekend said that should he win a Senate seat, “there will be consequences” for those who have led federal immigration agents’ violent incursion in US cities.

Platner has garnered endorsements and enthusiasm from lawmakers, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who recently criticized reports that Schumer was pushing for a Mills run—and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who called his campaign “pretty impressive” and “killer” recently.

He’s also proven to be a formidable fundraiser, pulling in more than $4 million since launching his campaign in August, and has spoken to overflow crowds in cities and towns across Maine.

Recent polling has shown Platner outperforming Mills by 21 points among Trump voters, 13 points among voters aged 18-44, and 10 points in rural parts of northern and western Maine.

On Tuesday, Platner released a statement welcoming Mills “into this race” and focusing on the fight to unseat Collins.

“I have held over 20 town halls in every corner of Maine, from Rumford to Madawaska to Portland,” he said. “Everywhere I hear the same thing: People are ready for change. They know the system is broken and they know that politicians who have been working in the system for years, like Susan Collins, are not going to fix it.”

But he also released his own ad, pledging to keep up the momentum to “retake our party and turn it back into the party of the working class.”

“We either organize and build power and fight, or we lose,” Platner told a crowd in the video.

Ryan Grim of Drop Site News posited that the entrance of Mills into the race could be “to Platner’s advantage” and may underscore his independent streak.

“By beating her (and Schumer) Platner can solidify the impression that he is independent of the party, whose brand is fatally toxic,” said Grim.

Less than two years after researchers at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom warned that the world was nearing numerous climate tipping points, a report out Monday warns that one such “point of no return” has already been reached, with warm-water coral reefs “experiencing unprecedented dieback.”

Surging global temperatures, especially in recent years, have pushed the world’s coral reefs into a state of widespread decline, with the worst bleaching event on record taking place since 2023. More than 84% of the world’s reefs have been impacted.

In the Global Tipping Points Report 2025 released Monday, the researchers warned that “the central estimate” of coral reefs’ “tipping point of 1.2°C global warming has been crossed,” with planetary heating now at about 1.4°C above preindustrial levels.

The warming waters have caused widespread bleaching of coral reefs, which impacts the nearly a million species of marine animals and organisms that rely on them to support some of the planet’s most diverse ecosystems.

“Unless we return to global mean surface temperatures of 1.2°C (and eventually to at least 1°C) as fast as possible, we will not retain warm-water reefs on our planet at any meaningful scale,” the report says. Minimizing non-climatic stressors, particularly improved reef management, can give reefs the best chance of surviving under what must be a minimal exceedance of their thermal tipping point.“

The decline of coral reefs also leaves coastal communities without natural barriers against storm surge, compounds the overfishing crisis by depriving fish of a habitat in which to reproduce, and impacts thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in reef tourism each year.

”As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation.“

”We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,“ Steve Smith, a social scientist at the University of Exeter and a lead author of the report, told Nature. ”This is our new reality.“

The arrival of the tipping point necessitates immediate, significant reductions in fossil fuel emissions that are driving planetary heating in order to return to a global mean surface temperature of 1.2°C over preindustrial temperatures, but climate scientist Bill McGuire did not mince words Monday regarding the likelihood of mitigating the damage already done to coral reefs.

”We won’t reduce temps to 1.2°C as soon as possible, so this is the death knell for most of the world’s stupendous reef communities,“ said McGuire. ”Other tipping points will follow.“

The report notes that the world is still headed toward other climate tipping points, namely the ”large-scale“ degradation of the Amazon rainforest, which is projected to ”weaken global climate regulation“ and accelerate biodiversity loss; the melting of mountain glaciers like Áakʼw Tá Hít in Alaska; and for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which regulates the climate by transporting warmer waters from the tropics to the northern Atlantic Ocean, whose likelihood of reaching a tipping point ”increases with global temperature“ rise.

Without rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the Global Tipping Points report says, the upper threshold of global temperature rise for coral reefs of 1.5°C is likely to be reached within 10 years.

”We are going to overshoot 1.5°C of global warming probably around 2030 on current projections,“ Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute told The Guardian.

Manjana Milkoreit, a co-author of the report and political scientist at the University of Oslo, told Nature that ”we have the knowledge regarding how to stop the Earth from reaching more tipping points.“gr

”What we need is a kind of governance that matches the nature of this challenge,“ she said.

The report also acknowledges ”positive tipping points“ that could have runaway impacts on the ability to rapidly draw down greenhouse gas emissions, such as the widespread adoption of regenerative agricultural practices and an acceleration in the transition toward electric vehicle and solar power use.

”Solar PV panels have dropped in price by a quarter for each doubling of their installed capacity. Batteries have improved in quality and plummeted in price the more that are deployed,“ reads the report. ”This encourages further adoption. The spread of climate litigation cases and nature positive initiatives is also self-amplifying. The more people undertaking them the more they influence others to act.“

Lenton told The Guardian that ”the race is on to bring forward these positive tipping points to avoid what we are now sure will be the unmanageable consequences of further tipping points in the Earth system.“

As Common Dreams reported last week, global progress toward transitioning away from fossil fuels and expanding the use of renewable energy is surging worldwide—but the US has been left out this year under President Donald Trump, with a major spending bill imposing new fees on solar and wind development and boosting drilling on public lands while the US Department of Energy is investing $625 million in coal.

The Global Tipping Points report was released four weeks before global leaders are set to meet in Belém, Brazil for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), where policymakers will be asked to contribute to a Granary of Solutions: ”a reservoir of concrete tools and initiatives—scalable, replicable, and aligned with the Paris Agreement—that connect ambition with implementation“ in order to trigger ”positive tipping points of transformation leveraging solutions that already exist.“

”As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation,“ Mike Barrett, chief scientific adviser at the World Wide Fund for Nature in the UK and a co-author of the report, told Yale Environment 360. ”Countries must show the political bravery and leadership to work together and achieve them.“

As one right-wing news outlet reported that it had “unmasked” a protester who for months has been participating in nonviolent resistance against the Trump administration’s agenda in Portland, Oregon, while dressed in a frog costume, one journalist spoke directly to the demonstrator about their views and motivations.

“I come out here day in and day out since June because I am worried about my community, I am concerned with what is happening in my community,” said the protester, whom news outlets have recently identified as Seth Todd. “I don’t want to see anyone treated inhumanely.”

Todd added that he finds it “unacceptable” that the Trump administration has deployed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and other federal agents to Portland, which President Donald Trump and other officials have baselessly described as “war-ravaged” and “under siege from attack by Antifa,” referring to protesters who oppose fascism.

Local reports have made clear that the agents themselves are escalating violence in Portland—using tear gas and pepper balls to stop community members, including Todd, from protesting near an ICE facility.

Last week, a federal agent was filmed shooting pepper spray directly into the air vent of Todd’s inflatable frog costume.

“I don’t want to see anyone treated inhumanely and to see this happen to my community members, my friends, my family, my neighbors,” Todd said Thursday.

The Telegraph‘s sensationalist reporting emphasized since-deleted comments on social media, including one in which Todd self-identified as a “little gay nonbinary toad and proud Antifa terrorist.”

The president last month signed an executive order claiming he had the authority to designate antifa—which is not an organization—as a domestic terrorist group. The term is a portmanteau of anti-fascist and refers to the ideology held by individuals and groups who oppose authoritarianism.

The newspaper quoted a family member of Todd’s who said: ”I’ve talked to him over and over again about it, if you want to protest, that’s fine. Let’s do it peacefully.“

The Telegraph did not include any description of any act of violence perpetrated by Todd, however.

Todd has been wearing the frog costume to protests since June ”just to show how ridiculous the notion that we are violent terrorists is,” the protester explained in the Thursday interview. “It’s just to showcase how that narrative is wrong and does a lot more damage than good.”

Reporting on the latest news out of Oregon, where a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked the president from deploying the National Guard in Portland last week, The Oregonian also struck an absurdist note on Friday:

The Oregonian/OregonLive fact-checked seven suspect claims made at President Trump’s antifa roundtable earlier this week that featured prominent administration officials and independent journalists with right-wing viewpoints.

We found: Portland is not on fire or bombed out.

Fact: Portland Fire & Rescue responded to four calls about fires near the ICE building since June 6, according to fire department data.

Fact: The last recorded bomb to explode near Portland was 2008.

Todd, the outlet added, is not the only Portland resident who has used a costume while confronting ICE agents.

“Our reporters at the ICE building Thursday night counted several frogs, a unicorn, a polar bear, an axolotl, a raccoon, a peacock, a shark, and a cat among about 100 regularly dressed people,” reported The Oregonian. “The nightly protest proved uneventful as darkness fell and protesters and counterprotesters started to gather. The herd of animal costumes stood out. Or was it a flock?”

Despite the calm atmosphere, reported the outlet, “rooftop officers used their pepper ball guns several times when protesters got particularly close to the officers on the ground.”

Another demonstrator who has donned a chicken costume at Portland protests told Willamette Week on Thursday that the use of animal suits has helped to poke holes in the overarching strategy the Trump administration is using to invade cities including Chicago, Memphis, and Washington, DC.

“What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid,” said Jack Dickinson. “It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [US Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.”

“It feels like we’re winning this,” added Dickinson. “They’re not getting the footage they’re looking for. They look ridiculous.”

An account given in court by the attorney of a woman who was shot several times by a Border Patrol agent “really makes it sounds like” the agent “tried to murder an anti-ICE protester in Chicago and DHS lied to cover for him,” said one researcher, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security whose agents have descended on the Chicago area in recent weeks and have violently raided homes and assaulted community members there.

Christopher Parente, an attorney for Marimar Martinez, spoke at a hearing Monday at a federal courthouse two days after federal officers accused her of driving toward them in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Parente said body camera footage called the account of federal prosecutors and Border Patrol into question, as it showed a Border Patrol agent saying to Martinez, “Do something, b----h” before pulling over and shooting her at least five times.

“We need a zero tolerance policy for lying by law enforcement,” said Jonathan Cohn, political director of Progressive Mass.

Martinez and another driver, Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, were charged Sunday with felony assault of a federal officer, with prosecutors saying they were “aggressively” driving in a “convoy” including several vehicles. The Chicago Sun-Times noted that a statement by DHS after the incident referenced a loaded gun in Martinez’s car, which was not mentioned in the charges filed.

In court on Monday, Assistant US Attorney Sean Hennessy told U.S. District Judge Heather McShain that Martinez had a gun in her car but did not brandish it, while Parente said she has a concealed-carry license and a valid firearm.

A video captured by a security camera at a nearby tire shop showed Martinez’s Nissan Rogue pulling alongside a Chevy Tahoe driven by Border Patrol agents, who had just conducted an operation in nearby Oak Lawn. A GMC Envoy driven by Ruiz is seen following closely behind the authorities’ car. The shooting is not captured on the video.

McShain acknowledged the danger of Martinez and Ruiz’s actions but denied a request by the federal government to detain them, pending trial, citing the two US citizens’ lack of criminal history and extensive community ties. Martinez works for a school and had several character witnesses write letters to the court on her behalf.

“I think there’s a danger to the community, but I don’t think it’s Ms. Martinez,” said Parente at the hearing.

Roughly 100 community members responded to the shooting Saturday by holding a protest in the area where federal agents fired pepper balls and tear gas at the demonstrators.

The shooting in Brighton Park was one of several recent incidents in which federal agents have violently confronted community members in the Chicago area, following President Donald Trump’s deployment of immigration officers as part of what he calls “Operation Midway Blitz.” Over the weekend, Trump announced he was deploying hundreds of members of the National Guard—both from Illinois and other states—to Chicago to support the effort over the objections of rights groups and Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

The president and his allies have repeatedly claimed that a federal law enforcement response is necessary in cities including Chicago, Portland, and Washington, DC, even as statistics have shown violent crime is down in the cities and as local authorities have denied that protesters against Trump’s mass deportation campaign are causing havoc.

On Monday, officials in Chicago and Illinois sued the Trump administration over its invasion of the city, and a group of protesters and journalists filed a separate suit arguing that federal agents have “shot, gassed, and detained individuals” for exercising their First Amendment rights.

U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said Sunday that the government shutdown that began last week and could be used as President Donald Trump’s latest reason for mass firings of federal workers is “Project 2025 in action” and condemned the Republican Party’s push to “inflict the most pain on Americans” that they can.

Jayapal (D-WA) spoke to MSNBC as the shutdown entered its fifth day, emphasizing that while the White House is threatening to fire federal workers en masse due to legislators’ failure to reach a deal on a spending package to keep the government open, the Trump administration has already overseen the dismissal of more than 100,000 public servants.

“They have actually already fired at least 150,000 federal workers,” said Jayapal. “They’ve already slashed agencies across the board and [Office of Management and Budget director] Russ Vought does want to use the shutdown to inflict more pain on the American people, instead of addressing the healthcare crisis that we have—both from the Big Bad Betrayal Bill and from the upcoming crisis we have around the Affordable Care Act subsidies.”

Jayapal’s comments came as Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Council director, told CNN that whether or not Trump takes advantage of what he has called an “unprecedented opportunity” to make more cuts to agencies is contingent on whether Democrats agree to the GOP spending proposal—which would keep the government funded for the time being but would allow for the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies and the Medicaid cuts that were part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The expiration of the subsidies could raise health insurance premiums by an average of 75% for millions of Americans, according to a KFF analysis.

Hassett expressed hope that the Democrats will be “reasonable once they get back into town on Monday.”

“And if they are, then I think there’s no reason for those layoffs,” he said.

On Saturday, unions representing public employees filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to block the administration from moving forward with the mass firings, with Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), placing the blame for the shutdown squarely with the GOP.

“These threatened mass firings are the latest attack on working people by an administration abusing its power to push through its extreme Project 2025 agenda,” said Saunders. “We’re facing a healthcare crisis with millions of Americans about to see their health insurance payments skyrocket, and instead of working across the aisle to solve it, the administration is threatening to use its orchestrated shutdown as an excuse to fire federal workers who perform critical services that Americans rely on. The threatened mass firings are unlawful. Public service work is vital to our communities, and we will do everything in our power to defend it.”

AFSCME and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) requested the temporary restraining order days after filing a lawsuit against Vought and other administration officials over the mass firing threat.

Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, which is helping to represent the unions, noted that Congress mandates “strict limits for personnel matters during a shutdown.”

“Donald Trump’s and his administration’s rampant lawlessness continues, and so must the effort to hold him accountable,” said Eisen. “The administration’s latest outrage against the Constitution and human decency is abusing the government shutdown to put in motion the firing of government workers. But Trump and his team have no such legal authority.”

“The federal courts have served as a bulwark against prior illegalities, and we look forward to a hearing here,” he added.
Democrats in Illinois last week accused the president of also using the shutdown to threaten congressionally approved funding for infrastructure projects in Chicago.

”Donald Trump and Russ Vought of Project 2025 are using this shutdown to inflict as much pain as they can,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Saturday. “They’re withholding federal money that has already been approved by Congress to target and punish American communities. This is illegal.”

Reports of the Trump administration’s plan to slash refugee admissions to an even lower number than previously stated—with the majority of spots given to white South Africans descended from French and Dutch colonists who arrived in the country in the 17th century—represents “a moral failure and a dark hour for our country,” according to one refugee policy expert.

As The New York Times reported late Friday, a presidential determination dated September 30 and signed by President Donald Trump showed that the president aims to cap refugee admissions at 7,500 in 2026—a significant decrease from the 40,000 that he previously discussed with officials, and from the 125,000 cap set by the Biden administration last year.

A White House official told the Times that the refugee limit would be final only after the administration consults with Congress, as it’s required to do under the Refugee Act. They added that consultation with the House and Senate Judiciary committees will be possible only after Democrats and Republicans reach a deal to fund the government and end the shutdown that began October 1.

But advocates and Democrats have pointed out in recent days that the White House’s deadline for consulting with lawmakers on refugee limits for next year was September 30, before the shutdown began.

As the deadline passed this week, Democratic leaders said that “in open defiance of the law, the Trump administration has failed to schedule the legally required consultation.”

“Despite repeated outreach from Democratic and Republican committee staff, the Trump administration has completely discarded its legal obligation, leaving Congress in the dark and refugees in limbo,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee; Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), ranking member for the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration.

The president effectively suspended the US State Department’s 40-year-old refugee resettlement program on his first day in office. The program requires refugees fleeing conflict, famine, and persecution to pass background checks and medical exams before entering the country, and often involves years-long waits in refugee camps before they are resettled in the US.

“What began as a so-called ‘suspension’ has now stretched into an eight-month shutdown, betraying the nation’s promise as a refuge for the oppressed,” said the Democrats. “Nearly 130,000 people facing persecution abroad who have already passed the rigorous vetting requirements of our refugee program have been abandoned by this administration, left to languish in refugee camps around the world after being given the promise of safety and a new life in America.”

But for white South African farmers, also known as Afrikaners, Trump carved out an exception earlier this year that will reportedly be extended into 2026—allowing them “to skip the line and rigorous vetting as countless others are shut out of the US,” said the Democrats.

Trump and his billionaire megadonor, South Africa-born Elon Musk, have helped spread false claims that the country’s democratically elected Black government has systematically oppressed white Afrikaners, who enforced a racist apartheid system until 1994, and has allowed white farmers to be murdered—saying white people in the country face a “genocide.”

White South Africans hold 20 times the wealth of Black people in the country despite making up just 7% of the population, and control the vast majority of land.

“Poor Black citizens of South Africa are far more likely to be victims of violent crime and murder than white people,” wrote Joe Walsh at Current Affairs last year, noting that during one period, “when there were 49 murders on farms across the entire country, one of Cape Town’s predominantly Black townships called Khayelitsha recorded 179 murders, at a rate of approximately 116 per 100,000 people.”

While Trump plans to open the door to thousands of white South Africans, said Danilo Zak, director of policy at Church World Service, “more than 100,000 refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, etc., who have been through years of vetting, approved, [are] now left stranded.”

With Trump’s determination on refugee numbers “already signed and dated,” said Zak, it’s impossible for Trump to have completed an “appropriate consultation” with Congress to approve the abandonment of refugees across the world.

Trump previously set a record low number for refugee admissions during his first term, imposing a cap of 15,000 slots for resettlement.

The new plan was reported as the US Supreme Court ruled for the second time in four months in favor of allowing the president to revoke Temporary Protected Status for 300,000 Venezuelans, putting them at risk for deportation—despite an earlier ruling by a federal judge who found Trump had acted illegally when he moved to revoke TPS.

“This decision threatens not only the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who will lose legal status and face deportation,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, “but also a basic sense of fairness.”

Public high schools in Oklahoma are being ordered to partner with Turning Point USA, the right-wing group founded by activist Charlie Kirk — and threatened with being stripped of their accreditation if they don’t comply.

Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, released a video address on Tuesday saying that “every Oklahoma high school will have a Turning Point USA chapter.”

“For far too long we have seen radical leftists with the teachers unions dominate classrooms and push woke indoctrination on our kids,” Walters said in the video posted to social media.

The state-mandated chapters of “Club America,” Turning Point’s high school program, will ensure students “understand American greatness” while enabling them to “engage in civic dialogue and have that open discussion,” said Walters.

Turning Point has claimed that since Kirk was fatally shot earlier this month at a debate event the group was holding at Utah Valley University, it has received a “massive surge of inquiries to start new chapters” of Club America.

He told reporter Paige Taylor of KOKH FOX 25, “We would go after their accreditation, we would go after their certificates, they would be in danger of not being a school district if they decided to reject a club that is here to promote civil engagement.”

Since Kirk’s killing, Walters has focused intently on rooting out teachers and school administrators who have not displayed mourning for the activist. On September 17, his office said it had received hundreds of reports of schools and educators displaying “vile rhetoric promoting the killing.”

The press release listed 224 reports of “defamatory comments” as well as 30 reports of schools “not observing a moment of silence” and three of schools refusing to fly their flag at half staff.

Kirk mobilized young conservatives and engaged in debates on college campuses regarding abortion rights, immigration, and other political issues. At events and on his podcast, he promoted the white supremacist view that a “great replacement strategy” was underway via immigration policy and claimed “prowling Blacks” target white people with violence in cities.

Walters has spent much of his time as state superintendent pushing for Oklahoma’s public schools to include Christian and right-wing beliefs in their teachings—calling on schools to display a video of him praying, procuring President Donald Trump-branded bibles after mandating biblical lessons, screening teachers for liberal viewpoints, and pushing for high school social studies teachers to include debunked conspiracy theories about “election fraud” in the 2020 election in their lesson plans.

After Walters announced his plan to mandate the establishment of Turning Point USA chapters at high schools, a number of observers noted that the superintendent has presided over a school system that is ranked 50th nationwide in terms of education quality.

A new report on no-bid contracts awarded in Texas to corporations after they donated to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s political action committee exemplifies why many people “lose faith in their government,” said one advocate at the watchdog group Public Citizen on Wednesday.

The organization released a report, Awarding Influence, on no-bid contracts that were awarded by Abbott from 2020-24 after he declared state emergencies over border security, Hurricane Beryl, and the coronavirus pandemic.

Donors to Abbott’s political action committee, Texans for Greg Abbott PAC, received approximately $950 million in at least 89 state contracts during those emergencies. The companies—including through their subsidiaries, PACs, executives, and executives’ spouses—donated a collective $2.9 million to Abbott in 96 contributions between 2014-25.

“The timing of the contributions is suspect,” said Andrew Cates, an attorney and government ethics expert. “The groups were awarded the contracts after they made large contributions to the governor or his [super PAC]. If it were the other way around, it could be viewed as a thank-you contribution, but this way feels much more pay-to-play when procurement money flows quickly after large contributions.”

Cates said one particular donor, Doggett Equipment Services Group, drew the scrutiny of Public Citizen due to $1.6 million it was awarded in no-bid state contracts that were simply labeled “fees.”

The company provides services to the heavy equipment industry across Texas, and its CEO, William “Leslie” Doggett, has contributed more than $1.7 million to Texans for Greg Abbott since 2014, either personally or through his corporation.

One of Doggett’s companies, Doggett Freightliners of South Texas, received two noncompetitive contracts—identified only as “fees” on paperwork—worth $1.6 million in 2022 and 2023. One of the contracts was finalized eight days after Doggett donated $500,000 to the PAC.

Cates said the Doggett contracts were “especially egregious.”

Doggett’s apparent transaction with Abbott’s PAC did not make his company the largest recipient of no-bid contracts detailed in the report; that distinction goes to Gothams LLC, an emergency management company that received nearly $640 million in contracts in 2021 and 2022.

After pandemic contracts began to slow in 2022, Gothams received just one contract worth $43 million—but after its founder, Matthew Michelsen, started sending donations to Texans for Greg Abbott that totaled $600,000, the firm received 10 contracts worth $66 million.

“People lose faith in their government when they see a system that appears to benefit those who can buy access to elected officials,” said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director of Public Citizen. “Even when no laws are broken, insider dealing undermines confidence in state government. People conclude that the government works for wealthy people first and everyday Texans second.”

In another example from the report, infrastructure development firm HNTB Holdings received an emergency contract worth $2.6 million in 2021 to provide software updates. Since 2015, the company, its PAC, and its senior officials have contributed $193,750 to Texans for Greg Abbott

“All of the companies identified in this report, either through corporate PACs or individuals affiliated with the company, contributed significant amounts to Texans for Greg Abbott,” said Cassify Levin, a research fellow at Public Citizen. “Lawmakers should adopt stronger restrictions on pay-to-play practices in government contracting and implement reporting requirements for the governor’s office in the aftermath of an emergency.”

The group called on Texas officials to make changes to the state’s contract procurement rules, including by:

• Banning no-bid contract awards to companies whose PACs, officers, or families of officers have made political donations above a given threshold within the last election cycle;
• Barring recipients of no-bid contracts from making contributions above a given threshold for a given period of time;
• Establishing a more thorough and transparent reporting process of the awarding of no-bid contracts after disaster and emergency declarations; and
• Imposing penalties for noncompliance, including contract forfeiture.

The report acknowledges that “disaster response includes the rapid deployment of resources to areas of need” and that “the speed involved may make normal contract bid and award procedures impossible.”

However, reads the conclusion, “ethics laws should be sufficient to eliminate conflict and the appearance of conflict in government decision-making.”

Shelley added that “there are simple safeguards that lawmakers could implement to avoid apparent conflicts of interest while still allowing the state to respond quickly to emergencies.”