Julia Conley, Common Dreams

A new report by an economic think tank takes aim at the broadly accepted idea that Americans are divided on the major issues affecting millions of people every day—the question of how to ensure everyone can get the healthcare they need without going bankrupt, how the government can ensure working people make enough money to live, and whether the US should take more aggressive climate action.

As it turns out, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) suggested Monday, there’s far more agreement on those and more issues across the political spectrum than the corporate media and establishment politicians from both sides of the aisle would have the public believe.

Lawmakers who push for good, fair-paying jobs for all workers; raising the chronically stagnant federal minimum wage; guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans; clean energy investments; and ending the influence of corporations and billionaires on US elections would not be advocating for policies that are just popular on the left, the report says, but would actually be promoting a “Majority Agenda.”

“It may feel like Americans agree on nothing right now, but recent polling tells a different story,” said CEPR on social media. “From raising the minimum wage and strengthening Social Security to affordable housing and healthcare reform, these progressive policies are broadly popular despite the political establishment continuing to ignore them.”

The group pointed to one 2024 poll by the American Communities Project that showed more than 60% of Americans agreed that the economy “is rigged to advantage the rich and the powerful,” while 62% disagreed with the idea of cutting social programs to lower taxes.

Another 2024 poll by The Associated Press found that 91% of Americans supported equal protection under the law and 88% supported the right to privacy, while a 2020 poll by the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School revealed that 89% of Americans expressed strong support for affordable healthcare, 85% felt people have the right to a job, and 93% thought the right to clean air and water is essential.

Analyzing those surveys and other data, CEPR advised policymakers to consider the Majority Agenda as a “roadmap” to passing policies that large majorities of Americans view as major priorities to improve their quality of life.

The report is divided into three sections: Good Jobs, Strong Infrastructure, and Fair Play.

To push for fair, well-paying employment, said CEPR, lawmakers should support policies including:

• Increasing unionization‚ supported by 68% of Americans in one recent poll, through the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, cracking down on retaliation against union members, and repealing or reforming the Taft-Hartley Act;
• Raising the $7.25 federal minimum wage, supported by 86% of Americans; and
• Setting a floor for paid time off from work by strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The section on strengthening US “infrastructure” looks beyond the traditional definition of the term regarding physical infrastructure projects, pushing for stronger policies that can help working people thrive by ensuring their healthcare, housing, and other basic needs are met.

A stronger infrastructure, said CEPR, would include:

• Guaranteed healthcare for everyone in the US through the passage of the Medicare for All Act, which has been introduced in the US House and Senate numerous times, and a corporate practice of medicine law to stop the corporatization of healthcare;
• A reversal of the trend of federal housing policy directing “too much funding to the wealthy and too little for everyone else,” by ending federal restrictions on the creation of new federal public housing instead of investing in mortgage interest deductions for wealthy homeowners and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, whose benefits are greater for wealthy investors than for low-income renters; and
• An investment in clean energy by reinstating Biden-era regulations and strengthening the Clean Air Act and other environmental protection laws in order to meet the demands of 59% of Americans who view the climate crisis as “very or extremely dangerous,” according to a 2021 poll by the University of Chicago.

CEPR pointed to three areas in which lawmakers could increase “fair play” for Americans:

• Strengthening and supporting Social Security, which Republicans frequently attack as rife with fraud and on the verge of going broke, by diverting some among of general revenue to the program and increasing monthly benefits modestly;
• Passing a constitutional amendment to allow the government to regulate campaign fundraising and spending both by campaigns and outside individuals and artificial entities; and
• Raising taxes on large businesses and the wealthy, as large majorities of Americans believe government should, and restoring funding to the Internal Revenue Service to ensure proper collection of taxes.

“That the US Congress is not debating or introducing bills to address the issues presented here represents a breakdown of democracy, one that comes at a considerable cost to the betterment of life for large swaths of Americans. At the same time, the access to and influence over our democratic processes by the monied class has upended our system of government, and all too often the tyranny of the wealthy minority has reigned,” reads the CEPR report.

“We hope this report stands as a reminder that even in a fraught political moment,” said CEPR, “there is a range of straightforward, broadly popular policy choices that could improve the lives of millions of people.”

A suspect was arrested in San Francisco Friday after being accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of Sam Altman, the CEO of the artificial intelligence firm OpenAI.

The 20-year-old man was found at the OpenAI headquarters about three miles away from Altman’s home, where he was threatening to burn down the building, San Francisco police said.

The device the suspect threw onto Altman’s property in the Russian Hill neighborhood caused a fire on the exterior gate. It was unclear whether Altman and his family were at home.

The suspect was in custody Friday, with charges pending.

Altman’s company and other companies have been under fire as AI has expanded rapidly at President Donald Trump’s urging, with the president issuing an executive order attacking states’ ability to regulate the industry.

Experts have warned the expansion of generative AI threatens jobs and democracy, with political campaigns already using the technology to create fraudulent media in advertisements.

Massive, energy-sucking AI data centers have also been blamed for higher household electricity bills and water consumption.

Protesters have rallied against Altman’s company for agreeing to provide its technology to the Department of Defense.

In November, The New York Times reported, a person who had once been associated with the anti-AI group Stop AI “expressed interest in causing physical harm to OpenAI employees,” causing the company to lock down its headquarters.

On Friday, Stop AI condemned the attack on Altman’s house and emphasized that the group “seeks to protect human life.”

“We do not condone any violence whatsoever,” said the group. “We pray everyone involved in this situation puts aside violence and finds peace, and we continue to hope the AI industry stops the development of frontier AI systems in the interest of public safety and the preservation of humanity. To the best of our knowledge, this incident did not involve anyone who has ever been associated with our group. And this action is wholly inconsistent with our values.”

Along with cutting environmental, housing, and health programs and proposing an increase of nearly $500 billion in military spending, President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal shows how the White House “wants to use taxpayer dollars to spy on those who oppose its extremist agenda,” one Democratic congresswoman said Monday evening.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Penn.) was referring to the budget’s description of a new FBI center that is already working to root out what the White House broadly defined as “domestic terrorism” in a federal memo last year.

As independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote this week, buried in Trump’s budget request—which includes $12.5 billion for the FBI to invest in counterterrorism efforts and other spending—is the White House’s latest assertion that “domestic terrorists... pose an elevated threat to the Homeland.”

“In recent years, heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased,” reads the budget’s section on domestic terrorism. “Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the US government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility to those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and mortality.”

The views described echo National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), the memo signed last September that directed federal agencies to develop a national strategy to “investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence” in order to stop violent attacks before they happen.

But despite the administration’s singular focus on groups and individuals who hold left-wing, anti-capitalism views and subscribe to belief systems other than Christianity, the National Institute of Justice found that since 1990, 227 attacks motivated by right-wing views killed 520 people, while far-left groups carried out 42 attacks that killed 78 people. The NIJ study was removed from the US Department of Justice website shortly after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk—an event that Trump explicitly blamed on left-wing groups without evidence, and which came weeks before the signing of NSPM-7.

The budget proposal explains that as a result of NSPM-7, the FBI recently created the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center (JMC), which is run by personnel from 10 federal agencies.

“The JMC is working to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence by integrating intelligence operational support, and financial analysis to proactively identify networks and prosecute domestic terrorist and related criminal actors,” reads the proposal.

Scanlon is one of a small number of elected Democrats who have spoken out about NSPM-7 in congressional hearings and media interviews.

“If anyone can be labeled a domestic terrorist for speech opposing this administration, our First Amendment rights are under grave threat,” said Scanlon recently.

Klippenstein noted that the budget document describes social media platforms and encrypted communications apps as being used by “domestic terrorists” to “recruit new adherents, plan and rally support for in-person actions, and disseminate materials encouraging radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

FBI Director Kash Patel told Congress that anyone who used the Discord channels used by Tyler Robinson, who was accused of killing Kirk, would be investigated by the agency.

Klippenstein noted that the FBI’s domestic terrorism watchlist, which as of last September listed about 5,000 US citizens, reportedly “is growing.”

“If your political views are practically anything other than MAGA, you’re on notice, courtesy of the FBI,” Klippenstein wrote.

The satellite firm Planet Labs told customers, including major news outlets, that it was acting on the Trump administration’s request as it announced it was implementing “an indefinite withhold of imagery” in Iran and across the Middle Eastern countries where the widening conflict started by the US and Israel is unfolding.

The Saturday announcement, said UK rights campaigner Sarah Wilkinson, was a sign that images of the war will be censored “to hide the truth.”

Planet Labs sent an email to journalists who have regularly used the company’s satellite images to report on the US-Israeli bombing of Iran and Iran’s retaliatory actions on Saturday, saying that after receiving a request from the US government, it was “moving to a managed access model... and releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest.”

Washington Post reporter Evan Hill suggested the announcement would limit reporters’ access to information from “one of the most important US-based commercial satellite imagery providers on whom most media outlets rely.”

The announcement comes as Iran’s military capabilities have reportedly exceeded US expectations, with US intelligence reporting Iran has retained many of its missile and mobile launchers and casting doubt on the Pentagon’s claims that the US is severely diminishing Iran’s missile stockpile.

The White House’s request for a suspension of satellite imagery was the latest sign that “Trump’s war is going swimmingly,” said podcast host Mark Ames sardonically.

It also coincided with multiple threats over the weekend from President Donald Trump, who said this coming Tuesday would be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one”—with increased attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure unless Iran agrees to a deal on Monday.

A major bridge was destroyed by the US on Saturday, while Israeli forces bombed a significant petrochemical complex, reportedly sending pollution into the surrounding city. At least 13 people were killed in the two attacks combined. A projectile that struck the vicinity of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant also killed at least one person and raised concerns about a larger attack, which “could trigger a nuclear accident, with health impacts that would devastate generations,” as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the Trump administration’s demand for satellite images to be withheld “will make it much more difficult to monitor US-Israeli bombing there, which seems to be the point.”

Data and imagery collected starting on March 9 will be withheld by Planet Labs. The company previously instituted a 14-day delay on the release of satellite images to ensure they would not be “leveraged” by “adversarial actors.”

Also on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli soldiers had “destroyed all of the CCTV cameras” around the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a mission in the southern part of the country where three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast on Friday and several others have been killed since early March, including some by Israeli fire.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday demanded “maximum military restraint” from the US and Israel as it confirmed reports that strikes had targeted a location close to Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, killing at least one person.

In a statement released via social media, the IAEA relayed a message from Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who expressed “deep concern about the reported incident.”

Grossi warned that nuclear power plants or nearby areas “must never be attacked, noting that auxiliary site buildings may contain vital safety equipment” and stressed “the paramount importance of adhering to the seven pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during a conflict.”

The IAEA said the attack near the Bushehr plant, Iran’s only operational nuclear power facility, was the fourth such attack since Israel and the US began its invasion of Iran on February 28. The plant lies in a city inhabited by about 250,000 people.

A security staff member was killed by a projectile fragment and a building on the Bushehr site was impacted by shockwaves and fragments. Grossi said that no increase in radiation levels was reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also condemned the Bushehr strike and issued a reminder of the “Western outrage about hostilities near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine” when Russia attacked the site.

“Israel-US have bombed our Bushehr plant four times now. Radioactive fallout will end life in [Gulf Cooperation Council] capitals, not Tehran. Attacks on our petrochemicals also convey real objectives,” said Araghchi.

Al Jazeera reported that at least two petrochemical facilities had been hit by the US and Israel in southern Iran’s Khuzestan province, an energy hub in the country. At least five people were injured in those attacks.

Iranian news agency Mehr reported that the state-run Bandar Imam petrochemical complex, which produces liquefied petroleum gas and chemicals as well as other products, sustained damage.

President Donald Trump said late last month that he would delay any attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure until April 6 and said the delay was “subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”

He has threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and other civilian infrastructure if Iranian leaders don’t end the blockade on the oil export waterway the Strait of Hormuz, which they began in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes that started more than a month ago and which has fueled skyrocketing global energy prices.

The threat amounted to Trump warning that he could soon commit a war crime, said international law experts.

As President Donald Trump’s Pentagon pushed Congress to approve $1.5 trillion in new military funding, including $200 billion for the US-Israeli war on Iran, congressional Democrats found that the working Americans whose taxes would fund those appropriations have spent $8.4 billion that otherwise could have gone to groceries, childcare, and other essentials—all at the gas pump.

Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday—two days after average gas prices in the US reached $4 per gallon, the highest in nearly four years—showing that those higher prices have forced Americans to pay 35% more on gas than they did a month ago, before Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in attacking Iran.

A month after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the war that’s killed more than 2,000 Iranians and well over 1,000 people across the Middle East as the conflict has widened, it now costs $145 to fill up just one gas tank for a Ford F-150 pickup truck—$37 more than it did in February.

An SUV costs an average of $58 to fill up, an increase of $15, while a sedan costs $52 on average—$13 more than it did before the war.

The analysis was released a day after Trump unequivocally stated that, despite his campaign pledge to make life more affordable for Americans, his administration’s priority is “fighting wars,” not ensuring the government provides childcare and healthcare that families can afford.

“We can’t take care of daycare,” said Trump. “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”

“Families are paying more at the pump because Republicans in Congress would rather spend billions of dollars on a war that raises costs than find ways to actually make life more affordable.”

The advocacy group Unrig Our Economy noted Friday that the war in Iran, which is supported by nearly every Republican in Congress—is just the latest way in which the GOP under the Trump administration has “raised costs and squeezed families.” The Joint Economic Committee found in February that Americans had gotten stuck with the bill due to Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imports, which he had claimed would generate massive revenue—but which actually cost the average family more than $1,700 in one year as companies passed off the higher cost of goods and materials to consumers.

“From the grocery store to the doctor’s office to the gas pump, congressional Republicans are financially crushing working Americans at every turn,” said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.

The committee Democrats also found last month that the average US electric bill rose by $110, or 6.4%, in 2025, driven by Trump’s cancellations of renewable energy projects, his push for liquefied natural gas exports, and his demand for an expansion of artificial intelligence data centers.

“Meanwhile, [Republican] attacks on Americans’ healthcare have sent premiums skyrocketing and put over 15 million Americans at risk of losing health insurance. Now, they want to cut healthcare even more to bankroll their costly and unnecessary war,” said Unrig Our Economy, referring to Republicans’ call to further cut federal health spending to pay for the Iran war.

As Americans have spent more at the gas pump and the White House has offered shifting explanations for why the US continues to wage war on Iran, public approval for the conflict has remained low. Nearly 60% of Americans said late last month that the war has already gone “too far” as the president threatened to escalate further, and 56% of respondents to a poll by Data for Progress said they believe the conflict will benefit Israel, not the US.

This week, two-thirds of people who responded to a CNN poll said they disapproved of the war and did not believe Trump has a clear plan. More than three-quarters said they would not support the Pentagon’s request for $200 billion to fund further military action.

But Trump, who White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles admitted this week has been getting a “rose-colored view” of the war in Iran during official briefings, told reporters Thursday that Americans are so relieved that the US and Israel are attacking Iran and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war that they are not concerned about the financial toll the war is taking on their families.

“We have a country that’s not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months,” said Trump. “They’re feeling a lot safer.”

US intelligence has determined Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

“Families are paying more at the pump,” said Tal, “because Republicans in Congress would rather spend billions of dollars on a war that raises costs than find ways to actually make life more affordable.”

As energy and finance officials from across the European Union prepared to review energy supply levels amid the US-Israeli war on Iran on Tuesday, campaigners from a leading climate action group renewed their call for officials to go further than just releasing oil reserves in order to keep costs down.

Oil giants that have benefited from the growing global energy crisis set off by the US-Israeli attacks and Iran’s retaliatory closing of the Strait of Hormuz should be held to account for their “fossil fuel profiteering,” said 350.org.

After a virtual meeting of energy ministers from the G7 countries on Monday, 350.org called on officials to tax the windfall profits of companies like France’s TotalEnergies, which is estimated to have made $1 billion in profits in just the last month since Iran closed the strait in retaliation for the US and Israeli attacks.

Total has reportedly “monopolized” about 70 crude oil shipments from the UAE and Oman in the last month, as Murban crude prices surged from $70 to $170 per barrel.

As Common Dreams reported Monday, 350.org released an analysis showing that spiking oil and gas prices resulting from the US-Israeli war have cost consumers and businesses more than $100 billion in the past month.

“It is obscene that companies like TotalEnergies are making enormous profits from war, while ordinary people’s lives are being shattered and the world faces a spiraling economic crisis,” said Fanny Petitbon, France team lead for 350.org. “At a time of such profound human suffering, no company should be allowed to exploit chaos and conflict for financial gain. The G7’s deafening silence on these windfall profits speaks volumes, signaling a failure to hold corporate greed accountable while the rest of the world pays the price.”

Revenues from taxing windfall profits could “be used to support vulnerable households, accelerate the transition to renewable energy, and fund recovery efforts in regions affected by conflict,” said Petitbon.

“The principle is clear: extraordinary profits made in times of crisis should be redirected for the public good, not concentrated in the hands of a few,” she said.

The ministers from the G7 countries—which include the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy—met virtually to discuss how the war in Iran is affecting energy and commodity markets and inflation. They called on countries “to refrain from imposing unjustified export restrictions” on oil and gas, but did not announce any specific steps they plan to take.

“We stand ready to take all necessary measures in close coordination with our partners, including to preserve the stability and security of the energy market,” the ministers said in a statement. “We recognize the importance of coordinated international action to mitigate spill overs and safeguard macroeconomic stability.”

Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency coordinated the release of 400 million barrels of oil to mitigate the supply shortfall caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, from which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.

But gas prices across Europe have continued to rise by 70% nonetheless. In the US, the average price of gas rose to $4 per gallon on Tuesday for the first time since August 2022.

Brent crude oil, which cost about $70 per barrel before the war, has gone up to $119 per barrel, and analysts are projecting prices as high as $200 as the conflict continues.

Monday’s virtual summit was held ahead of an emergency meeting of EU energy ministers, who were told by EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen in a letter Monday that they were “encouraged to make timely preparations in anticipation of a potentially ⁠prolonged disruption” of energy imports.

Jørgensen emphasized in a video posted on social media Monday that the growing energy crisis underscores how a transition away from oil and gas toward renewable sources is crucial for economies as well as the planet.

“We will need immediate targeted measures to combat this crisis, but all of these measures need to be in line with our long-term strategy, which is more renewables as fast as possible,” said Jørgensen.

Materials released over the weekend by the Texas Department of Public Safety regarding a homeland security officer’s killing of 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez last March in Texas appeared to provide the latest evidence that federal agents have misled the public about the circumstances surrounding fatal shootings.

American Oversight, a government watchdog group, revealed last month that nearly a year before the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Martinez was the first known US citizen to be killed by an agent of the Trump administration who was carrying out official duties.

Since then, a grand jury has declined to indict the accused officer, Homeland Security Investigations agent Jack C. Stevens, and American Oversight as well as Martinez’s family and lawyers have demanded that state authorities release the findings of their investigation into the killing, with the watchdog filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

The body camera footage released on Saturday called into question statements that were made by the Department of Homeland Security after Martinez’s killing was publicly revealed, when a DHS spokesperson said the young man “intentionally ran over” an agent.

Internal documents also claimed officers commanded Martinez to get out of his car after he approached the scene of a vehicle accident and that he “accelerated forward, striking a HSI special agent who wound up on the hood of the vehicle.”

The video that was released came from a body camera worn by a South Padre Island, Texas police officer who was one of a number of local, state, and federal agents securing an area after a car accident.

About 21 minutes into the officer’s footage, someone can be heard saying, “Keep going” as Martinez’s car approaches the scene. The car briefly stops for some pedestrians, and officers soon appear to become concerned, running toward the vehicle and shouting, “Stop him” and, “Get him out.”

Martinez’s car appears to be moving slowly, with the brake lights on, as three gunshots are heard and just after.

The video then shows an officer removing Martinez from the car and throwing him on the ground while his friend who was in the car with him, Joshua Orta, is taken into custody.

The internal DHS documents said a second HSI agent Hector Sosa, was struck by the car in his legs, falling over the hood. The footage is taken from behind the car, making it unclear whether Sosa was hit—but it does not show Martinez accelerating.

If an officer was hit, University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey P. Albert told the Washington Post, based on the footage of the car it would have been a case of “officer-created jeopardy.”

“The contradictory orders are confusing and may have been a strong influence,” Alpert told the Post. “The speed is slow and doesn’t appear threatening. Could the officer have moved away? At worst, all he has to do is step aside.”

He added that the body camera video raises “a lot of red flags.”

Lawyers for Martinez’s family, Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm, said in a statement that the videos confirm the 23-year-old’s car “was barely moving when he was shot.”

“He was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger,” said the attorneys.

Orta, who was killed last month in an unrelated vehicle accident in San Antonio, provided a witness statement after Martinez was killed, saying “I state clearly and without hesitation that Ruben did not hit anyone,” Orta wrote. “The trooper seemed to be trying to get in front of the car, like he wasn’t moving out of the way when we tried to turn around and leave like the police officer told us to do.”

More than a dozen people have been killed by federal immigration officers since President Donald Trump took office for his second term in January 2025.

In the case of Good, an independent autopsy was conducted as part of a civil investigation into her killing and found “strong evidence” against the agent who shot her, calling into question the Trump administration’s claim that the officer had killed the 37-year-old in self-defense.

A preliminary government investigation into Pretti’s killing did not find that the legal observer had threatened or attacked the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection agents who fatally shot him, as the administration had first claimed.

Both Pretti and Good were immediately denounced as “domestic terrorists” by administration officials.

DHS also claimed that Marimar Martinez, a Chicago resident who was shot several times by a federal agent but survived last October, had “rammed” officers’ vehicles. Body camera footage and text messages from officers later undermined those claims. Federal prosecutors abruptly dropped their criminal case against Martinez weeks after she was shot.

The video of Martinez’s killing in Texas, said columnist Nicholas Kristof, suggests that the DHS account of that incident “may be a lie” as well.

As President Donald Trump on Thursday held the first meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, the international organization ostensibly set up to oversee the Gaza ceasefire plan, contracting documents leaked to the Guardian provide the latest evidence that the board aims to permanently occupy the area that’s been under Israeli bombardment for more than two years.

The documents detail plans for a sprawling military base with capacity for 5,000 people that’s set to be built over 350 acres in southern Gaza, which is currently under Israeli control as stipulated by the ceasefire deal reached in October.

The base would serve as the headquarters for the International Stabilization Force (ISF), a future military force composed of troops from more than 20 countries that have signed on to the Board of Peace—an effort that has not secured support from a number of major US allies including the United Kingdom, the European Union, and key EU members such as France, Germany, and Spain.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the Munich Security Conference last week that plans for the Board of Peace do not match the original United Nations mandate, which she said “provided for it to be limited in time until 2027, it provided for the Palestinians to have a say, and it referred to Gaza, whereas the statute of the Board of Peace makes no reference to any of these things.”

In Davos last month, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner unveiled the board’s plans for a “New Gaza,” including areas for “coastal tourism” and residential towers.

The ISF, which has been approved by the UN Security Council, would be tasked with securing Gaza’s border and protecting civilians while training and overseeing Palestinian police forces.

But Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian former peace negotiator, told the Guardian that the establishment of a massive military base by the Board of Peace—of which Trump has been named as the permanent leader, according to its UN-approved charter—can only be seen as an act of US occupation.

“Whose permission did they get to build that military base?” Buttu asked.

A Trump administration official denied that US military forces will be stationed at the military base and declined to discuss the contracting documents when asked about them by the Guardian.

“As the president has said, no US boots will be on the ground,” the official told the outlet. “We’re not going to discuss leaked documents.”

The plans viewed by the Guardian detail 26 armored watchtowers, a network of bunkers for troops to go for protection, a small-arms range, and a barbed-wire perimeter.

The documents also describe plans to conduct a “geophysical survey” of the site planned for the military base to identify “subterranean voids, tunnels, or large cavities”—likely a reference to tunnels used by Hamas—and includes a “Human Remains Protocol.”

“If suspected human remains or cultural artifacts are discovered, all work in the immediate area must cease immediately, the area must be secured, and the contracting officer must be notified immediately for direction,” reads the document.

The bodies of about 10,000 Palestinians are believed to be buried under rubble across Gaza, according to the exclave’s civil defense agency. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza—which has continued with attacks since the ceasefire was reached last October—has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians and damaged approximately 81 of all structures in the exclave, according to the UN Satellite Center. The agency said in October that 123,464 buildings were classified as “destroyed.”

On Thursday, Trump spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace about plans for the body to “strengthen up the United Nations” and “almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly.”

He also said the US would be paying $10 billion into the Board of Peace but did not explain how that investment would be funded or whether Congress, which would have to approve the funds, had been consulted.

The meeting, said one organizer with the grassroots group People’s Forum, was a “petrifying projection of imperialist dystopia.”

“Trump and the Board of Peace’s plan,” they said, “is to enact neo-colonialism in Gaza and across occupied Palestine through an Israeli and international police force, and nothing more.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration’s current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal.

The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the “deal” that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions.

Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is “talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.”

But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that “he’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him.”

If the public and the president himself believe that high-level negotiations are taking place, “in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence,” Drop Site reported, asserting that Rubio is “deliberately” blocking Trump from the talks and misleading him.

A lie like the one Drop Site‘s sources alleged, said reporter Ryan Grim, “would be a defining scandal in any other administration.”

The idea that talks are taking place has been “accepted as fact” in Washington, DC, reported the outlet, which pointed to Politico‘s recent reporting that said the son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro traveled to Mexico for talks with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Politico‘s article was sourced to a Cuban dissident blogger and a “single, fantastical Facebook post made by a Spain-based Cuban journalist.”

Drop Site noted that while Trump is currently threatening Cuba’s economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people with an oil blockade, having cut off the Venezuelan oil supply to the island after ordering an invasion of the South American country over a month ago, he doesn’t appear to be driven by an “ideological confrontation with Cuba” and in fact holds potential financial interests in normalizing relations with the country because he holds a registered trademark for a Trump property in Havana.

Rubio, whose family immigrated to the US from Cuba before the Cuban Revolution—but didn’t flee Fidel Castro’s takeover as he claimed early in his political career—has long called for regime change in the country.

The US State Department refuted the accounts of Drop Site‘s five sources and told the outlet that diplomatic talks—which Cuban leaders have said they are entirely open to holding—are taking place, but did not provide evidence or details.

“As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal. Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil,” the State Department press office said.

That claim contradicted a comment from Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, who told CNN last week that the government has had “some exchanges of messages” with the White House.

“We cannot say we have set a bilateral dialogue at this moment,” he said.

Drop Site News’ reporting indicates, said Cuban-American organizer and New York City Council candidate Danny Valdes, that “Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation,” while Cuban leaders “want dialogue and a way forward, without surrendering their sovereignty.”

Officials in both Texas and Minnesota are calling for accountability and a full investigation into conditions at Camp East Montana, the sprawling detention complex at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, following the third reported death at the facility in less than two months.

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis, where ICE has been carrying out violent immigration arrests, cracking down on dissent, and where one officer fatally shot a legal observer earlier this month.

He was one of roughly 2,903 detainees being held at Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss US Army base, one of the largest ICE detention centers in the country, on January 14 when contract security workers found him “unconscious and unresponsive” in his cell.

He was later pronounced dead and ICE released a statement saying he had died of “presumed suicide,” but officials arre still investigating his cause of death.

Diaz’s death comes days after it was reported that a medical examiner in Texas was planning to classify another death reported at Camp East Montana—that of Geraldo Lunas Campos—as a homicide.

A doctor said Lunas Campos’ preliminary cause of death in early January was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression.” An eyewitness said he had seen several guards in a struggle with the 55-year-old Cuban immigrant and then saw guards choking Lunas Campos.

A month prior of Lunas Campos’ death, 49-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Francisco Gaspar-Andres died at a nearby hospital; he was a detainee at Camp East Montana. ICE said medical staff attributed his death to “natural liver and kidney failure.”

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan called for a “complete and transparent investigation” into what happened to Diaz after his death was announced Sunday.

“We deserve answers,” said Flanagan.

US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who last year expressed concern about the US government’s deal with a small private business, Acquisition Logistics LLC, to run Camp East Montana, said the detention center “must be shut down immediately,” warning that “two deaths in one month means conditions are worsening.”

After the administration awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Acquisition Logistics to build and operate the camp, lawmakers and legal experts raised questions about the decision, considering the small company had no listed experience running detention centers, its headquarters was listed as a Virginia residential address, and the president and CEO of the company did not respond to media inquiries.

“It’s far too easy for standards to slip,” Escobar told PBS Newshour after touring the facility. “Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.”

In September, ICE’s own inspectors found at least 60 violations of federal standards, with employees failing to treat and monitor detainees’ medical conditions and the center lacking safety procedures and methods for detainees to contact their lawyers.

Across all of ICE’s detention facilities, 2025 was the deadliest year for immigrant detainees in more than two decades, with 32 people dying in the agency’s centers.

After Diaz’s death was reported Sunday, former National Nurses United communications adviser Charles Idelson said that “ICE detention centers are functioning like death camps.”

Alabama is among the states that have seen a significant drop in the number of obstetrician-gynecologists working there since Roe v. Wade was overturned and cleared the way for states to ban abortion, resulting in doctors being unable to provide standard care and in a number of cases, placing patients in serious and even deadly danger.

On Friday, at a White House roundtable on healthcare in rural areas—some of the hardest-hit by the lack of OB-GYN care in states with abortion bans—one of President Donald Trump’s top health officials suggested the exodus of doctors from Alabama and other crises in healthcare access have resulted in positive innovations as care is outsourced to “robots.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said that since Alabama “has no OB-GYNs in many of their counties,” the state is “doing something pretty cool.”

“They’re actually having robots do ultrasounds on these pregnant moms,” said Oz.

CMS, which oversees the new Office of Rural Health Transformation, recently highlighted in a report about rural healthcare Alabama’s Maternal and Fetal Health Initiative, which it said “provides digital maternity care by using telerobotic ultrasound devices and labor and delivery carts to rural hospitals.”

Oz asserted that robotic ultrasounds will help to reduce Alabama’s maternal mortality rate, which is the highest in the United States, as medical centers will be able to detect health issues and abnormalities.

But observers said that praising an outcome of the dearth of maternal healthcare in the state—which has been at least partially caused by Trump’s push to overturn Roe and Republicans’ efforts to ban abortion—was “horrific.”

“The severe lack of OB-GYNs,” said the labor-focused media group More Perfect Union, “is a crisis, especially in rural America.”

Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, added: “It’s not safe to be an OB-GYN in red states, so they are turning to robots to care for pregnant woman. This is not an innovation success story. It’s a dystopian horror story.”

A 2024 analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that in the year following the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, applicants for OB-GYN residency programs plummeted 21.2%.

The ruling allowed Alabama’s near-total abortion ban—which has only one ostensible “exception” for cases in which a pregnant person faces a serious health risk—to go into effect. Rights groups said that the law, one of the most extreme bans in the US, had been passed by the state’s Republican legislature as part of an effort to force the court to reconsider Roe.

Robin Marty, executive director of WAWC Healthcare in the state, told the Alabama Reflector in 2024 that “when it comes to, especially, OB-GYN residencies, nobody wants to come out here because we can’t fulfill all of the requirements, which include being able to do abortions and manage miscarriage.”

There had also been a 13.1% drop in applicants for OB-GYN programs in 2019-20 after the approval of the state’s Sanctity of Life Act, which recognized “the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”

“Legislative interference that imposes restrictions on full-scope reproductive healthcare, including abortion care, discourages medical students from pursuing residency training in states with restrictions, directly hurting patients by reducing the physician workforce in the communities that often need clinicians the most,” AnnaMarie Connolly, chief of education and academic affairs of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), told the Alabama Reflector.

In addition to the state’s abortion ban, the worsening lack of prenatal care in rural Alabama has also driven the state’s decision to turn to robotics to provide some aspects of healthcare.

Since 2020, more than 100 rural hospitals across the nation have stopped delivering babies; at least three of them have been in Alabama, where just 30% of rural health centers have labor and delivery units. Hospitals have cited staffing shortages and low Medicaid reimbursement payments—which were worsened by the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act—as reasons for closing obstetric care units. Closures have left many families traveling an hour or more to receive prenatal care, and can worsen maternal mortality rates.

Regarding the robotic ultrasounds heralded by Oz, political analyst Drew Savicki said: “That is interesting but it represents a very small fraction of what an OB-GYN does. What is an ultrasound robot going to do for a woman who is coming in for her post-childbirth examination?”

In his comments, Oz unwittingly described the crisis the Trump administration has helped to make worse: “We have the best healthcare, if you can get to it.”

One observer suggested Trump’s healthcare officials “explain why no OB-GYNs want to work in Alabama, rather than bragging about robots.”

A press freedom group on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of a “disturbing escalation” in its “war on the First Amendment” after the FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who has extensively covered President Donald Trump’s attempts to gut the federal workforce.

FBI agents reportedly conducted a search early Wednesday morning at the Virginia home of Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a federal contractor who is accused of illegally retaining classified documents.

“If true, this would be a serious violation of press freedom,” said the Freedom of the Press Foundation in a social media post.

The Post reported that the agents seized Natanson’s cellphone, Garmin watch, a personal laptop, and a laptop issued by the newspaper.

The warrant stated that the FBI was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator with top secret security clearance who has been accused of taking classified intelligence reports to his home in Maryland. The documents were found in his lunch box and basement, an FBI affidavit said.

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney noted that the criminal complaint regarding Perez-Lugones’ case does not mention allegations that he gave any classified documents to a reporter.

“The FBI’s search and seizure of a journalist’s personal and professional devices appears to be a serious violation of press freedom and underscores why we need to enact greater federal protections for both journalists and their sources,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America. “Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the seizure is linked to an investigation into a federal contractor who is alleged to have leaked classified information. It’s worth reiterating, though we shouldn’t have to, that journalists have a constitutionally protected right to publish government secrets. We call for the FBI to immediately return Hannah Natanson’s devices.”

Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told the New York Times that the FBI search at Natanson’s home was “intensely concerning” and could chill “legitimate journalistic activity.”

“There are important limits on the government’s authority to carry out searches that implicate First Amendment activity,” Jaffer said.

As the Committee to Protect Journalists notes in a guide to reporters’ legal rights, the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 established high standards for searches and seizures of journalists’ materials that are “reasonably believed to be related to media intended for dissemination to the public—including ‘work product materials’ (e.g., notes or voice memos containing mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, etc. of the person who prepared such materials) and ‘documentary materials’ (e.g., video tapes, audio tapes, photographs, and anything else physically documenting an event).”

“These materials generally cannot be searched or seized unless they are reasonably believed to relate to a crime committed by the person possessing the materials,” reads the guide. “They may, however, be held for custodial storage incident to an arrest of the journalist possessing the materials, so long as the material is not searched and is returned to the arrestee intact.”

Last year, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) ended a Biden-era policy that limited its ability to search or subpoena a reporter’s data as part of investigations into leaks.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”

Before becoming FBI director, Kash Patel said in 2023 that should Trump return to the White House, his administration would “come after people in the media” in efforts to target the president’s enemies.

The Post reported Wednesday that “while it is not unusual for FBI agents to conduct leak investigations around reporters who publish sensitive government information, it is highly unusual and aggressive for law enforcement to conduct a search on a reporter’s home.”

Natanson has spent much of Trump’s second term thus far covering his efforts to fire federal employees, tens of thousands of whom have been dismissed as the president seeks to ensure the entire government workforce is pushing forward his right-wing agenda.

She wrote an essay last month for the Post in which she described being inundated with messages over the past year from more than 1,000 federal employees who wanted to tell her “how President Donald Trump was rewriting their workplace policies, firing their colleagues, or transforming their agency’s missions.” She has written about the toll the mass firings have had on workers’ mental health.

Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement that “physical searches of reporters’ devices, homes, and belongings are some of the most invasive investigative steps law enforcement can take.”

“There are specific federal laws and policies at the Department of Justice that are meant to limit searches to the most extreme cases because they endanger confidential sources far beyond just one investigation and impair public interest reporting in general,” said Brown. “While we won’t know the government’s arguments about overcoming these very steep hurdles until the affidavit is made public, this is a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press.”

Congressman Jamie Raskin got right to the point in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as he sought an answer to a question several Democratic lawmakers have raised in recent months regarding the Trump administration’s recruiting practices as it seeks to flood American communities with immigration officers.

“How many pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have been hired by your respective departments?” Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, asked the two officials.

The congressman wrote to Bondi and Noem as video evidence continues to mount of federal agents’ violent tactics in communities across the US following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent’s fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good last week.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Raskin, “seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists.”

He pointed to “white nationalist ‘dog whistles’” it’s used in its recruitment campaigns that appear to target members of “extremist militias” like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters.

Potential ICE recruits have been bombarded by messages from DHS calling on them to help “defend the homeland” and images like one of a white Uncle Sam caricature standing at a crossroads with signs pointing one way—labeled “INVASION” and “CULTURAL DECLINE”—and another, labeled “HOMELAND” and “LAW AND ORDER.” The image and caption appeared to be a reference to the white nationalist text Which Way, Western Man? by William Gayley Simpson.

The groups and militias apparently being targeted by the recruitment push coordinated with one another on January 6, 2021 as their members and leaders were among those who stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop former President Joe Biden’s electoral victory from being certified.

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions after taking office last year was pardoning more than 1,500 people convicted of participating in the attempted insurrection, and dozens of them have been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes including child sexual assault, possession of child pornography, and domestic violence.

Other Democratic lawmakers have previously raised alarm about the lax hiring requirements DHS has put in place as it seeks to grow its ranks of ICE agents, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noting in an October letter to Noem that in its push to hire more so-called “patriots,” ICE has “changed the age requirements for new recruits.”

“DHS announced that applicants now can apply at the age of 18 and there is no age cap. ICE also removed its Spanish-language requirement—shortening the training program by five weeks—and is pursuing additional ways to expedite training,” wrote Durbin. “The loosening of hiring standards and training requirements is unacceptable and will likely result in increased officer misconduct—similar to or worse than what occurred during a small surge in hiring US Customs and Border Protection officers in the early 2000s.”

On Monday, Raskin pointed out that ICE agents have been permitted to go to great lengths to hide their identities with masks as they’ve tackled people to the ground, “detained and battered multiple pregnant women,” threatened people and confiscated their cellphones for filming them—a protected activity under the First Amendment—and rammed open the door of a home in Minneapolis as they apparently began “door-to-door” operations.

“Unique among all law enforcement agencies and all branches of the armed services, ICE agents conceal their identities, wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms. Why is that? Why do National Guard members, state, county, and local police officers, and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all routinely work unmasked while ICE agents work masked?” wrote Raskin.

“Who is hiding behind these masks?” he continued. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6 and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this administration.”

He demanded the release of records related to the solicitation or hiring of anyone charged or investigated for participating in the January 6 attack.

Raskin’s letter was sent as independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on leaked documents showing that ICE and Border Patrol officials on the ground are struggling to cope with both staffing and legal compliance issues following Good’s killing.

“While Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and others in the administration preen about justifying last week’s shooting and trumpet their war on ‘domestic terrorism,’ DHS is privately divided and hesitant about the latest deployments,” wrote Klippenstein, detailing efforts within the agency to find around 300 volunteers to deploy in Minneapolis, “in part due to opposition within the ranks.”

Following DHS’ aggressive recruiting push that appears to designed to appeal to extremist militias, “there might be some immature knuckleheads who think they are out there trying to capture Nicolás Maduro, but most field officers see a clear need for deescalation,” a high-ranking career official at DHS told Klippenstein. “There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around.”

Officials are reportedly pushing to rein in the agents whom the Trump administration has unleashed on communities including Minneapolis, where ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good while she was sitting in her car after she had reportedly been given conflicting orders by officers.

While Trump has suggested Good was to blame for her killing because she was “disrespectful” to the officers and videos have surfaced of agents attacking and threatening people for filming and observing them, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino sent a “legal refresher” to agents in the field, reminding them that protesters who use profanity, insults, and rude gestures are not breaking any laws.

Noncompliance with law enforcement and recordings of ICE agents are protected activities, the document reminds officers.

Sarah Saldaña, a former director of ICE, also recently said that DHS’ decision to frame its recruiting push as a “war effort” would inevitably result in a federal anti-immigration force that views itself as being at war with the communities it’s sent to.

DHS is promoting a viewpoint among recruits that “the quicker we get out there and run over people, the better off this country will be,” Saldaña told the Washington Post days before Good was killed. “That mentality you’re fostering tends to inculcate in people a certain aggressiveness that may not be necessary in 85% of what you do.”

A DHS official who spoke to Klippenstein said that “the claim is that recruiting is up, but there is also dread that the gung-ho types that ICE and the Border Patrol are bringing in have a propensity towards confrontation and even violence.”

It’s been more than a month since a media firestorm over old Reddit posts and a tattoo thrust US Senate candidate Graham Platner into the national spotlight, just as Maine Gov. Janet Mills was entering the Democratic primary race in hopes of challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins—a controversy that did not appear at the time to make a dent in political newcomer Platner’s chances in the election.

On Wednesday, the latest polling showed that the progressive combat veteran and oyster farmer has maintained the lead that was reported in a number of surveys just after the national media descended on the New England state to report on his past online comments and a tattoo that some said resembled a Nazi symbol, which he subsequently had covered up.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which endorsed Platner on Wednesday, commissioned the new poll, which showed him polling at 58% compared to Mills’ 38%.

Nancy Zdunkewicz, a pollster with Z to A Polling, which conducted the survey on behalf of the PCCC, said the poll represented “really impressive early consolidation” for Platner, with the primary election still six months away.

“Platner isn’t just leading in the Democratic primary. He’s leading by a lot, 20 points—58% are supporting him,” Zdunkewicz told Zeteo. “Only 38% are supporting Mills. There are very few undecided voters or weak supporters for Mills to win over at this point in the race.”

Platner has consistently spoken to packed rooms across Maine since launching his campaign in August, promoting a platform that is unapologetically focused on delivering affordability and a better quality of life for Mainers.

He supports expanding the popular Medicare program to all Americans; drew raucous applause at an early rally by declaring, “Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza”; and has spoken in support of breaking up tech giants and a federal war crimes investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean.

Mills entered the race after Democratic leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged her to. She garnered national attention earlier this year for standing up to President Donald Trump when he threatened federal funding for Maine over the state’s policy of allowing students to play on school athletic teams that correspond with their gender.

But the PCCC survey found that when respondents learned details about each candidate, negative critiques of Mills were more damaging to her than Platner’s old Reddit posts and tattoo.

Zdunkewicz disclosed Platner’s recent controversy to the voters she surveyed, as well as his statements about how his views have shifted in recent years, and found that 21% of voters were more likely to back him after learning about his background. Thirty-nine percent said they were less likely to support him.

The pollster also talked to respondents about the fact that establishment Democrats pushed Mills, who is 77, to enter the race, and about a number of bills she has vetoed as governor, including a tax on the wealthy, a bill to set up a tracking system for rape kits, two bills to reduce prescription drug costs, and several bills promoting workers’ rights.

Only 14% of Mainers said they were more likely to vote for Mills after learning those details, while 50% said they were less likely to support her.

At The Lever, Luke Goldstein on Wednesday reported that Mills’ vetoes have left many with the “perception that she’s mostly concerned with business interests,” as former Democratic Maine state lawmaker Andy O’Brien said. Corporate interests gave more than $200,000 to Mills’ two gubernatorial campaigns.

Earlier this year, Mills struck down a labor-backed bill to allow farm workers to discuss their pay with one another without fear of retaliation. Last year, she blocked a bill to set a minimum wage for farm laborers, opposing a provision that would have allowed workers to sue their employers.

She also vetoed a bill banning noncompete agreements and one that would have banned anti-union tactics by corporations.

“In previous years,” Goldstein reported, “she blocked efforts to stop employers from punishing employees who took state-guaranteed paid time off, killed a permitting reform bill to streamline offshore wind developments because it included a provision mandating union jobs, and vetoed a modest labor bill that would have required the state government to merely study the issue of paper mill workers being forced to work overtime without adequate compensation.”

Speaking to PCCC supporters on Wednesday, Platner suggested the new polling shows that many Mainers agree with the central argument of his campaign: “We need to build power again for working people, both in Maine and nationally.”

The survey, he said, “lays clear what our theory is, which is that we are not going to defeat Susan Collins running the same exact kind of playbook that we’ve run in the past—which is an establishment politician supported by the power structures, supported by Washington, DC, coming up to Maine and trying to run a kind of standard race... We are really trying to build a grassroots movement up here.”